Savar building collapse
I would like to express my deep sorrow for the families who have lost their loved ones in the recent Savar building collapse. It is a disgrace that after the building had collapsed many people had the mood to celebrate Pahela Baishakh, rather than mourning. This building collapse is definitely a wake up call to many people that there could be disasters like this in the future. Immediately after the building collapsed, Rajuk had formed a five member investigation committee and they also claimed that the building did not have their approval. Now Rajuk is an organisation of the government and is responsible for inspecting different structures on different types of land in the city. Just imagine a multi-storied building that was built and has been there for about four years without approval and Rajuk did not see it. Isn't it Rajuk's job to find out which structures are legal and which are not? Now the big question is where were they all this time. Were they sleeping? If they were it's a pity that a tragedy like the one in Savar had to wake them up.
So we do not need an investigation by Rajuk; what we need is a high powered judicial hearing. According to the Star weekend magazine a BUET graduate named Shamim was the person responsible for the vertical expansion, now I do not know if he was a civil engineer or not but I think he failed to check whether the soil could sustain the pressure from the structure or not.
I believe it is time we got answers to all such questions.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.