RECORDER REPORT

PESHAWAR: The University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Peshawar has organized the first one-day International virtual conference on “Recent Advances in Civil and Earthquake Engineering (ICCEE-2021) “Making Resilient Infrastructures”.

The Department of Civil Engineering, UET Peshawar organized the conference under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Muhammad Irshad, Chairman Civil Engineering. The Vice Chancellor UET Peshawar Prof. Dr. Iftikhar Hussain was the chief guest at the inaugural session.

Prof. Dr. Iftikhar Hussain in his address said, UET Peshawar is privileged to actively contribute in developing the National Building Code of Pakistan in 2007 and establishing the standards in coordination with Government authorities. Presently, UET Peshawar is actively involved in developing the Building Code of Pakistan (2021) and produced the seismic zoning map for Pakistan for the upcoming new code. He appreciated the efforts of Prof. Dr. Muhammad Irshad for making concerted efforts in conducting the conference that is aimed to focus on current research and best practices in the areas of seismology and earthquake engineering, structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, transportation Engineering, water resources engineering, environmental engineering, civil engineering materials and infrastructure engineering.

Prof. Dr. Muhammad Irshad briefed the participants on the objectives of conference with special focus on 8th October 2005 earthquake that caused a colossal damage to the infrastructure and human lives in Pakistan. He said, the Department of Civil Engineering has been very active in multiple directions to serve the country from developing seismic based building codes for Pakistan, to applied research targeted towards earthquake resistant designs with aim to build safe structures in Pakistan.

The conference brought together leading academic scientists and researchers to share views on latest trends and practical challenges in the field of civil engineering.

Prof. Dr. Tim Sullivan from University of Canterbury, New Zealand and Dr. Ketrin Beyer from Peking University, Beijing, China spoke in the opening session and emphasized on application of modern design methods to control risk and urged the civil engineers to communicate the solutions with regard to earthquake risks in future for disaster-resilient societies.