They also said risk of earthquake depends primarily on the geological condition and geo-morphological setting of the city.

ActionAid Bangladesh organised the seminar at Spectra Convention Centre in city's Gulshan where experts suggested taking short term and long term measures so that casualties by earthquake can be reduced.

Experts said many structures of the both cities in particular schools, garment factories, mosques, shopping centres, and movie theatres are at high risk.

Dr M Shahidul Islam, professor of Geography and Environmental Studies of Chittagong University (CU), said vulnerability of any city depends on geological set-up, infrastructure and socio-cultural condition.

"Huge population will die or be critically injured and most of the buildings will be damaged if a medium earthquake hits the old parts of Dhaka or Chittagong," he said while presenting his keynote paper on Earthquake Vulnerability Atlas of Chittagong City.

He suggested taking short-term awareness programme so that people can save themselves from the earthquake.

"The government should take strong long term programme especially imposing restriction to construct high rise building with low-quality materials," he said.

"One person dies when a doctor makes a mistake, but hundreds of people will die when an engineer makes a mistake," he mentioned urging the engineers to be careful while constructing a high-rise building.

KS Masud Siddiqui, director general of Disaster Management Bureau, said people would understand their duties before, during and after an earthquake if a map based awareness programme is launched.

ActionAid Bangladesh Country Director Shoaib Siddiqui presided over the seminar while Dr Maksud Kamal, Catelijene Mittendorff, AFM Shahidur Rahman and Shamina Akhter also spoke on the occasion.