Cracks develop in yet another DCC building

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A five-storey building in the Dayaganj sweeper colony has developed cracks due to the ‘forced vibration’ following the subsidence of the adjacent under-construction building, putting more than 500 residents at risk.
Cracks were found at several places from the ground floor to the fourth floor and in and outside the rooms, in the beams and sunshades.

Ruhit Lal Das, a city corporation employee living at room number two on the ground floor, showed this correspondent that cracks have formed in the beams at the front and rear side of his room.

“We are poor and do not have any other place to move to. The government should ensure our safety,” said a distressed Ruhit, who lives there with six other family members.

Meanwhile, the chief engineer of the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) thinks that the occupants of the building are not in any danger. “I have told them just to check if the cracks are developing in length further,” he said.

He, however, refused to make any more comments before the investigation is complete.

Meanwhile, the inquiry team comprising members of DCC, Buet civil engineering and army engineering, yesterday collected concrete samples again from the building, which sank into the ground Friday night.

The members of Buet (Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology) laboratory said that they could not work on the samples they collected on Sunday.

“Generally we cut the concrete piece and make a cube out of it for putting in the machine for testing. But our previous samples turned into dust while making cube as the concrete structure was too weak,” Golam Rabbani, Buet lab technician, said.

The work of knocking down the collapsed building was found to be going on at a slow pace.

Meanwhile, Atikullah Khoka, the contractor of the subsided building, claimed that he conducted soil test and did piling before erecting the structure.

“I cannot remember the name of the company from where I did the soil test, but I did it. I don’t understand how and why it happened,” Khoka told The Daily Star over telephone. “The materials I had bought from the market might have been faulty.”

He had drawn more than half of the bills for his work, he said.

Meanwhile, one of the family members of Khoka told The Daily Star that local Ward Commissioner Mokbul Islam Khan Tipu is close to the family when this correspondent visited Atikullah’s house at Monir Hossain road yesterday.

“He (Tipu) is like our family member,” Mahfuza Akhter, sister of Atikullah, said.

The local people alleged that Atikullah and the local ward commissioners are very close and the commissioners get share of Atikullah’s earnings.

When asked about the allegations that he influenced the DCC to get Atikullah the contract for the building, Tipu denied it. “The contractors themselves distribute the work through negotiations, so the ward commissioners have no role in negotiations,” he said.

He also observed that profit is minimal from the building work. “Even the contractors don’t want to do the building work due to this. So how can we get commission from it,” he added.

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