1st Croatian Conference on Earthquake Engineering 1CroCEE 2021

Earthquake is one of those disasters which have a direct and acquit effect on human lives and settlement. At any disaster event, the importance of hospitals is out of question. Functional hospitals are a cornerstone in a coordinated national disaster response and without it the health consequence could be disastrous. Vulnerability assessment for non-structural elements of a hospital is very important to keep it functional during and after a disaster event. By taking mitigation measures according to vulnerability assessment of non-structural elements of a hospital it is very easy to serve during the time of emergency. Bangladesh is one of the most earthquake vulnerable countries in the world. Moreover, the north-east region of the country is lying on most threatening zone of seismic hazard. Lalmonirhat Sadar hospital is a district level tertiary hospital, similar to other district level hospitals in structural and service facilities. As lacking in proper non-structural vulnerability assessment process, mitigation system to reduce disaster impact developed not so far. In methodology the non-structural elements were assessed by WHO guidelines and questionnaire survey were conducted amond 400 hospital users and employees to assess the social awareness under 5 category with 25 subcategory. There are 58 types of medical facilities in Lalmonirhat hospital and most of them are in vulnerable situation during the earthquake in Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale measures. The continuous values derived from the sub-variables under 5 variables of social awareness factors is compounded into a total score which has the range of 25. The final score out of 25 is 7.93 which indicate low level of social awareness of the hospital users for the earthquake awareness. This lower score encourage to develop an effective vulnerability mitigation plan for non-structural elements of a hospital to reduce hazard impact on health facility.