Business
Five lakh will die if Patna quake epicentre: Nitish
Patna, May 13
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish
Kumar on Wednesday warned that five lakh people would die if the
epicentre of an earthquake was in Patna, and stressed the need to make
buildings quake-proof.
"We only felt the tremors as the epicentre
was in Nepal. If it would have been in Patna, at least five lakh people
would lose their lives in minutes," Nitish Kumar said at a conference
of the state disaster management department.
A day after a
massive earthquake rocked parts of Bihar and killed at least 15 people,
Nitish Kumar said high-rise buildings have been constructed in congested
lanes, violating safety norms.
"Last month's earthquake and
Tuesday's earthquake were warnings for all of us to make buildings
earthquake-proof for safety," he said.
Nitish Kumar also
emphasised on providing training to engineers, architects and masons for
constructing earthquake-proof buildings.
He said Indians need to
take lessons from earthquake-prone Japan, which has developed a
building technique that helps avoiding damage to property or human lives
in case of building collapses.