Cuttack, June 9: The district administration has set June 30 as the deadline for completion of a survey of unsafe buildings in the city.

The Cuttack collector has set the deadline after taking stock of preparedness related to old buildings and their ability to withstand natural disasters, especially earthquakes.

It is the first survey of its kind in the city. The successive quakes the city witnessed during last month's earthquake in Nepal have triggered fresh concern.

Cuttack lies in seismic zone-III, which means it is susceptible to moderate intensity earthquakes.

In May, the district administration directed the development authority and the corporation to conduct a safety assessment of unsafe buildings after many structures developed cracks following an earthquake in the Bay of Bengal.

"The structural audit of the unsafe and old buildings will be a continuation of the survey that had started in July last year and covered less than 10 of the 59 wards," municipal commissioner Gyanaranjan Das said.

A technical committee with engineers of the works department and the Cuttack Municipal Corporation as well as structural engineers of the Cuttack Development Authority is expected to complete the assessment. "The survey is expected to be a classification of the old buildings on the basis of an assessment of their structural stability to withstand tremors of various intensities," said Cuttack collector Nirmal Mishra.

Sources said the survey had identified 496 buildings as unsafe. Of them, almost 196 were only residential government buildings.

"The councillors had been asked to conduct a preliminary survey of the old and dilapidated buildings in their respective wards. The committee will make a physical assessment of the buildings and prepare the detailed report," said the municipal commissioner.

Though the district administration had started the survey, little effort was given into ensuring that buildings coming up in the city were earthquake-resistant. Every year, the development authority approves thousands of plans for new structures. But, little thought is apparently spared for the stability of these buildings. It is mandatory to get a certificate from a structural engineer, but this has allegedly been reduced to a mere formality. Building owners, in many cases, do not even wait till the authority approves their plans.

"We ensure that the plans adhere to our building regulations and parameters. But as far as structural vulnerability to earthquakes is concerned, we rely on the endorsement given to a building plan given by the structural engineers empanelled by us," said authority's vice chairman Pratap Das.