Social Assessment of Community Resilience to Earthquake in Old Dhaka

Abstract

The capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka is an earthquake-vulnerable megacity, mainly due to its geological and geographical location, high density of population, and weakly built structures. The historic core of Dhaka, also known as Old Dhaka, where most of the buildings are old, densely constructed, unreinforced, nonengineered, and accessed by narrow streets, is more susceptible to an earthquake. This study is focused on the qualitative assessment of earthquake resilience at the community level in Old Dhaka using different participatory approaches. The assessment is done based on different dimensions of absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities of this community. The people of Old Dhaka are not aware of earthquakes, and there is also a visible communication gap between the local people and government authorities. Although the earthquake risk is high in Old Dhaka, this area has potentialities to be an earthquake-resilient area. The government agencies and authorities also have lots of scope to work with the community and take proper initiatives to make this area resilient to an earthquake.