Earthquakes usually catch people off guard and they respond in panic and commit more mistakes. This leads to even more damages and disasters. The most important part of survival is therefore to know what needs to be done and not lose cool by flying in all directions.

Sadly for Bangladesh, the media added to the panic as they had no idea what to say or do so panic manufacturing became their main task. This has led to a huge trauma caused not only by the tremors but also by the media feeding an audience desperate for some reassurance but who got only fuel for fear.

The unpredictability factor and the predictable GOB plans

Of all the disasters that haunt Bangladesh such as floods, storms, heat waves and various epidemics, earthquakes are the least predictable and that's a global matter. Earthquakes aren't into early warnings and none can say how big or small the intensity will be. Many earthquake prone countries of the developed variety have regular drills and preparations.

Bangladesh sits on the top of a major fault and a "sub-induction "zone or plate layers atop each other which makes it significantly vulnerable. Given that, there should be some preparation but of course very little exists. What was to be expected? The role and responsibility lies with the government and they are not famously known for doing such work, some would say any work. Since it involves long term preparation with no specific time frame, no project exists. That was only to be expected.

The Government of course hasn't invested any major resource chunk when there are other competing and easily accessible and short term funding opportunities. Its also long term and Bangladesh doesn't believe in the long term so its one long area of neglect.

However, every few years an earthquake occurs and a lot of attention is paid to it for about a week before it's forgotten. Most know that the big one happens once a century so "let's not worry". There are many other places to make money and claim to be serious about disasters and humanitarian response.

Plus climate change is far better funded and sexier so to speak. As TIB has also reported, it's one of the most economically advantageous for the official world to get involved in. Hence the scenario is to neglect the earthquake issue till the next jolt comes.

And as expected, the media doesn't want to know what is going on, they just want clicks and views as the media is about counting numbers by whatever means possible, not quality content. So its no surprise that various media outlets are competing with each other to sound more alarming than the next.

Media and disasters

Earthquakes are certainly the most shocking disaster of them all as the scale of its destruction is very dramatic and loss of lives very high. It also scares people the most. So when Dhaka was rocked by the most jolting quake in the last hundred years as per experts, the media went for the audience to say the most sensational stuff of them all.

What the media knew was that they could feed half- baked opinions of "experts" without any context and background who were ready to say what frightened people the most including potential death of lakhs of people, rebuilding 75 % of the city from scratch and the end of the city from the big one and evacuation was the only way to save lives.

The quake was certainly experiential and people saw it happen to themselves with buildings shaking, a few cracking and many running around in sheer terror. It even caused a few deaths in Dhaka as well as elsewhere including Narsingdhi where the tremors were sourced.

For the media, already facing a slightly jaded audience, who are not so interested anymore by regular meals of murder, sexual affairs, corruption and politics, this was God sent. And who was better than the media to take it to scale by going full throttle on the possible future scenario of mega quakes, mega destruction and of course mega death- numbers.

The earthquake experts are of course always there to provide the fuel because unlike the socio-economic and Human Rights think tanks, they get a chance only every few years and this time around, egged on by the media anchors they loved the spotlight. So saying things like, "more are coming and when that comes millions will die" is exactly what the media wanted to hear.

It's obvious they don't know when the next one is coming -none does - so all they can do is assume it's coming. This earthquake experts group really pushed the button and the media showered the dust of terror and fear over all , almost all too scared by panic to think straight anyway.

The result has been more trauma inflicted by the media feeding "expert' opinion to a public seeking some assurance to go on living no matter how long. They heard exactly what shattered them most. Bangladesh now has a large population who are so scared that they won't even listen to facts now overrun by fear causing unforeseen consequences. And the media played a large role in that.

It's not something one can be proud of.