Approach to integrate communities in earthquake management of Dhaka city

Abstract

Community involvement in earthquake disaster management is an emergent issue for earthquake prone countries over the world. Though Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh lies in the moderate earthquake seismic zone (two (02)) of Bangladesh but its rapid urbanization, unplanned development, lack of open spaces and water bodies, etc. lead the city towards high risk of an earthquake. Considering the threat of a major earthquake, Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has undertaken earthquake contingency plan for Dhaka city aside by the disaster management plan, act, and standing order on disasters. This study aims to develop a community integrated earthquake management framework for Dhaka city. The study reviewed the disaster and earthquake management documents like plan, act and case studies of the selected Asian countries: India, Japan and Nepal to explore the community involvement in different phases of earthquake management. The review of Earthquake Contingency Plan for Dhaka City has also been conducted along with National Disaster Management Plan (2010-2015) and (2016-2020), Disaster management Act, 2012, Standing Order on Disasters (SOD), 2010 and 2019 of Bangladesh. Four earthquake vulnerable wards of Dhaka: Ward 14 (Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC)), Ward 06 (Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC), Ward 15 (DNCC) and Ward 17 (DNCC) according to the “Bangladesh Urban Earthquake Resilience Project” by World Bank (WB) and Earthquake Megacity Initiatives (EMI) were selected as study areas to explore the earthquake management at community level. Field level data was collected and analysed through the application of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Participatory Vulnerability Analysis (PVA) tools. Key informant interview and expert opinion survey have also been carried out. The review of Asian countries show that the linkage established from central to community level for earthquake management through formation of different committees as in Panchayet Raj Institute (PRI), India, or community based disaster management organization as in BOKOMI, Japan. The earthquake contingency plan for Dhaka city proposed the community involvement in a few sectors like search, rescue, health and shelter management. The institutional framework of disaster management shows that City Corporation Disaster management Committee (CCDMC) is the lowest level linking the city corporation with central authority. In SOD, 2019, Ward Disaster management Committee (WDMC) under CCDMC has been declared. But it is tough to manage the population of more than 100,000 in a ward for a WDMC. Thus there is need for a Community Level Disaster Management Committee (CDMC) under WDMC. In the selected communities of Dhaka city, there is no WDMC, lack of volunteers, lack of management of CBOs, absence of rescue teams, and neighborhood level medical teams as per Earthquake Contingency Plan. Thus, the review and field survey have concluded with the proposal for CDMC and Community Disaster Management Organization (CDMO) thus community integrated earthquake management framework that can act as a guideline for the improvement of present earthquake management system of the country.