NBL not cooperating to avoid risk after Karwan Bazar land cave-in, Dhaka mayor says

National Bank Limited is not ‘cooperating’ to make risk-free the area at Karwan Bazar after the street caved in due to a construction of its high-rise, Dhaka North City Mayor Annisul Huq has alleged.

“National Bank is the owner of the land. We expect that the owners will visit the site,” Huq said while visiting the site beside Hotel Sundarban on Friday.

“...no one even spoke to me more than a minute,” he added, expressing disappointment over the activities to avoid any further unpleasant incident.

The boundary wall of the hotel, an alley, and a street, adjacent to the construction site of NBL Twin Tower, collapsed on Wednesday. Part of CR Dutta road also developed cracks.

Similar land subsidence also took place on Thursday night and Friday morning.

Kolabagan Police Station OC said no casualties took place in Friday’s land subsidence.

Dhaka North Mayor Huq on Friday said city corporation was supplying ‘hundreds of thousands of tonnes of sand’ but alleged the bank authorities or the contractor were not helping ‘as expected’ to pile the sand to avoid further land subsidence.

Dhaka North City Corporation Chief Engineer Gazi Firoz Rahman told bdnews24.com: “There is no way other than piling sand to avoid land sinking. But the risk will increase if it rains.”

People related to the recovery said sand-hauling trucks could not reach the backside of the construction site, leaving the area behind the site at great risk.

“We thought 1,500 trucks of sand would be enough but now it seems that we need twice the number,” Mayor Huq said.

M/S Constructions and Development was building the twin tower for the bank. The firm’s owner Mohammad Salauddin told reporters: “We piled most of the sand with the help of the city corporation.”

Mayor Huq asked him at the time, “Why is no one from National Bank here?”

On Thursday, the housing and public works ministry in a media statement blamed the building owner and contractor firm for the incident.

“The owner or contractor firm has to take responsibility if any building is constructed flouting existing laws and codes or any accident happens during the construction,” it said.

Capital city’s development authority RAJUK formed an investigation committee after the incident and asked it to submit report within 24 hours.

Two days have passed after the incident, but no report has been submitted.