Dhaka's Vertical Death Traps: When Buildings Become Dangers

Walk through any part of Dhaka today, and you will see the same picture: tall buildings packed close together, narrow lanes between them, and construction that never really stops. The city looks busy and alive. But hidden under that energy is a serious danger. Experts say many of Dhaka's buildings are not safe at all. Some engineers call them "vertical death traps" — tall structures that could collapse, catch fire, or crumble during an earthquake.

This is not just an opinion. It is backed by real numbers-According to a 2022 survey by RAJUK, the city's development authority, more than eight lakh buildings out of Dhaka's total 21.45 lakh could collapse if a strong earthquake of magnitude 6.9 hits the city . That is almost 40 percent of every building in the city, and experts estimate over 200,000 people could die (Prothom Alo, The Daily Star, November 2025). This is not a distant fear. On November 21, 2025, a real earthquake of magnitude 5.7 shook Dhaka, killing ten people and injuring more than a hundred. By evening, RAJUK inspectors had found over 50 buildings that had cracked or tilted — a clear warning of worse things still to come.

Why are so many buildings unsafe? Academic research gives some clear answers.

A study published in the Journal of Civil Engineering (IEB) by researcher M. R. Sadat and colleagues used a method called Rapid Visual Screening to check the earthquake safety of buildings in Dhaka. It found that many reinforced concrete buildings score poorly on structural safety, meaning they were never built to survive strong shaking. A similar study, published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Management by Podder, Hasan, and Islam, looked at Ward 27 in Dhaka South City Corporation and found the same weakness in older, crowded neighbourhoods, where roads are narrow.

Interestingly, not every danger comes from earthquakes. A BUET research study that assessed 350 buildings for both hazards found that fire risk in Dhaka is actually higher than earthquake risk — about 58.6 percent compared to 16.3 percent. This tells us fire is the more immediate, everyday danger, even though earthquakes get more attention right after a tremor.

History supports this finding. Dhaka has already suffered several deadly fires: Nimtoli, Churihatta in Old Dhaka, the Bangabazar market fire, and the FR Tower fire in Banani, which killed 26 people trapped inside an office building with no working emergency exit. In almost every case, the same story repeats — the building was built without following fire rules, or safety features were quietly removed later to save money.

How did Dhaka reach this point? Urban planning expert Nazrul Islam explained this years ago in his well-known book, Dhaka: From City to Megacity. He described how Dhaka grew too fast, without proper planning, as millions of people moved into the city searching for jobs and shelter. Builders rushed to put up homes and offices quickly, often skipping safety rules to save time and money. The pattern he described decades ago still continues today, almost unchanged.

Newspaper reports confirm how big this problem has become. Between 2006 and 2016, around 95,000 buildings were constructed in Dhaka, but only about 4,000 had proper approval from RAJUK, according to The Daily Star. Most buildings in the city, in other words, went up with no real safety check at all. Environment Adviser Syeda Rizwana Hasan has said nearly 90 percent of Dhaka's older buildings do not follow the national building code.

So what needs to change? Experts largely agree on the basics: identify the most dangerous buildings first, make owners repair or demolish them, and actually enforce the fire and earthquake rules that already exist on paper. A new law, the Bangladesh Building Regulatory Authority Act, was passed this year to fight illegal construction, and RAJUK has promised a new trust to fund safety upgrades across the city.

But Dhaka has heard such promises before. After every disaster, officials set up committees and announce bold plans. Then, slowly, public attention fades, and old habits quietly return.

The lesson from research, history, and recent tragedy points to one truth: Dhaka's tall buildings are not just structures reaching for the sky — for many residents, they are risks waiting to happen. Until real, lasting action is taken, the city will keep living dangerously close to its next disaster.


Shreonti Samiha studies Law 
in Bangladesh University of 
Professionals (BUP), Mirpur 
Cantonment, Dhaka.