DHAKA, 5 April 2005 — Bangladesh and India have agreed to set up new boundary pillars and repair the damaged ones and resolve amicably the disputes over illegally occupied lands along the frontier.
Officials said yesterday the two sides reached the accord after a three-day Bangladesh-India joint border survey in Tentulia and Sadar sub-districts of Panchagarh district that concluded on a happy note.
“Now Bangladesh and India are conducting a survey to resolve the disputes. After finalizing the survey report, construction and repairing of border pillars will start,” the joint team said.
Meanwhile, an official said yesterday that Bangladesh will set up a National Tsunami Warning Center, amid fears that earthquakes off the coast could trigger destructive waves.
The need for such a center in Bangladesh, already prone to natural hazards such as floods and cyclones, has risen after a tsunami triggered by a quake off Indonesia in December swept Indian Ocean shores, leaving nearly 300,000 dead or missing.
Only two people died in that disaster in Bangladesh but Mir Fazlul Karim, director for the Geological Survey of Bangladesh, told officials at the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management that the threat from locally generated earthquakes was very real. “The threats of tsunamis in the coastal belt of Bangladesh can’t be ruled out. The 200-km long continental shelf is possibly susceptible to earthquakes and the locations have great potential for generation of local tsunamis,” Karim told the officials during a meeting open to the media.
“Bangladesh has agreed on the formation of a National Tsunami Warning Center, with responsibilities and capabilities to generate tsunami warnings,” he added.
