Threat of hazard has been increasing with the rapid growth of urbanization. Risk of hazard in urban area is more complex than rural area because of high population concentration and economic activities. Vulnerability assessment of hazard has become a prime research topic in the field of Engineering and Urban and Regional Planning. Because of the complex characteristics of hazard, it does not only need engineering but also planning measures for effective mitigation of hazard.
Dhaka City is at risk of earthquake and has been experiencing many fire accidents. In most cases lack of proper precautionary measures along with the institutional inefficiency, insufficient equipment support and lack of public awareness are making the situation worse. In this study, ward 29, an old part of Dhaka city has been selected for vulnerability assessment of both earthquake and fire. A sample of 350 buildings has been analyzed by a visual screening method FEMA-RVS for earthquake vulnerability assessment, a methodology developed by ADPC (2004) for fire hazard vulnerability assessment and a methodology developed by World Bank (2014) for social vulnerability assessment. The composite vulnerability score has been developed by incorporating earthquake and fire hazard as well as social vulnerability condition of the study area. The final output of the vulnerability assessment is a map showing buildings with different categories of vulnerability. The study area is relatively more vulnerable to fire hazard than earthquake. Out of 350 sample buildings, 58.6% buildings are found to be vulnerable to fire hazard and 16.3% buildings need further detailed investigation for earthquake. As the study area is one of the most densely populated wards in Dhaka City, social factors have compounded the overall vulnerability to higher scale. Most of the buildings (38%) are highly vulnerable to both earthquake and fire hazard considering social impacts.
In spite of living under serious threat of earthquake and fire hazard, local people are not conscious about this. Being one of the most densely populated built-up areas with high concentration of economic activities, the ideal mitigation planning to reduce risk is almost impossible without involvement of community people. So it is inevitable to include community people in mitigation planning by warning them of their own risk and making them resilient through awareness programs and training.