Gulistan blast: Rajuk begins work to stabilise affected building

Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) has started propping up the damaged pillars of the Gulistan building where a blast on Tuesday left 22 people dead, to make the building stable.

Nine of the 24 columns in the eight-storey building were badly damaged in the blast.

"We are setting up the steel propping at the place of damaged pillars so that the building does not collapse further," said Rangon Mondol, an official of Rajuk, told The Daily Star.

Rangon is also the member secretary of six-member probe committee over the incident. Rajuk formed the committee on Tuesday to investigate the present condition of the building.

The committee will submit the report within three working days.

Earlier, in the morning, Maj (Rtd) Shamshuddin Ahmed Chowdhury, chairman of the probe committee of Rajuk visited the site.

He hoped that propping up work will be complete by Friday.

"Only after the propping up work, we will be able to say whether the building needs to demolished," he said.

The decision to resume traffic movement on the roads around the building may come after stabilising it, he added.

He said they will recommend in the probe report to complete Detailed Engineering Assessment (DEA) of the building by a third party within 45 days. Then, necessary retrofitting will have to be done based on the DEA report within 150 days.