Dhaka: Mayor of Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Annisul Huq on Thursday underscored the need for creating awareness to face any kind of natural or manmade disaster as he wants to see Dhaka as a ‘safe city’.

“All, including school and college students, should enrich them with information and knowledge to tackle a calamity. Local public representatives can also play an important role in this regard,” he said while addressing a function to disseminate the Urban Disaster Resilience Index (UDRI) assessment report of DNCC at a city hotel.

The DNCC mayor also emphasised keeping aside open place in every area of the city to be used as safe shelters in case of any disaster like earthquake or fire.

Replying to a query, he said around 8,000 closed-circuit TV cameras have already been installed in the DNCC areas with the help of some individuals and organisations to ensure security of the city dwellers.

Hinting at setting up high quality LED streetlamps, he said no space under the DNCC will remain in dark from March next year.

Keota University of Japan prepared the UDRI report of different wards of DNCC under the project ‘Capacity Building for Community-Based DRR in Urban Areas of Bangladesh’.

According to a UDRI report, the average rate of UDRI of DNCC area was 2.52 in 2016 while it was 2.35 in 2010.

The highest rate of UDRI is 5 but the rate over 4 is considered as high quality index.