A sea of tears: the flooded people of South Bangladesh

With ocean levels rising, and shrimp farms proliferating, villages in south Bangladesh are being flooded by the sea. There is no water to drink, so people must search for it daily, writes Tahmima Anam.

Guardian, June 20, 2009

If you look at a map of Bangladesh, you will see that the southern coast has a meandering, indistinct border. This is the home of the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, with its strange, submerged trees, its Royal Bengal tigers, and its mythical figures such as Bon-Bibi, goddess and protector of the forest. It is where the delta ends and the sea begins.

Water has been the making and unmaking of Bangladesh. It is the reason the rice grows thick and fast, why the rivers ripple with fish, why the land is carpeted with green. But the water is also cruel. Every year, torrential rains flood villages and farms; rivers break their banks, swallowing great chunks of land, destroying the homes, and the dreams, that are built upon it.

Now, through disasters both man-made and natural, water is wreaking a new kind of havoc. Due to rising sea levels in the Bay of Bengal, and because the government has encouraged the unchecked growth of shrimp farms, the villages scattered along the south-western coast are being flooded with salt water. Large tracts of land, previously green with paddy, are now hot and stagnant pools, hospitable only to the cultivation of shrimp. The shrimp farms are lucrative, but they employ fewer people than the rice farms they have supplanted, leaving many households without an income. The briny water also has ruinous effects on the ecosystem. Nothing grows in these districts any more: the fish have died, along with the birds that depended on them. The cows have nothing to eat, so there is no milk; the tigers are fleeing inland and attacking humans. Worst of all, there is no fresh water to drink.

Munem Wasif’s photographs capture the desperate search for drinking water that has become a daily struggle for the villagers of southern Bangladesh. Their wells and fresh water sources contaminated, they spend the better part of their days in the search for water. Women make the long trek to the nearest source, kolshi flasks heavy on their hips. Children are taken out of school to help with water collection. Some villagers have taken collective action: every day, they lead small boats through the forest, gathering water and supplying their entire village. Others have no recourse but to pray – to the skies, to God, to Bon-Bibi – for the sweet, life-giving water that once coursed abundantly through this land.

• Munem Wasif visited Bangladesh with the support of Prix Pictet, which aims to communicate issues of global significance through photography, and WaterAid, which manages clean water and sanitation projects in the developing world

Climate Driven Migration Has Begun

Climate and Capitalism, June 15, 2009

Forecasts of environmental migration vary widely – the intergovernmental International Organization for Migration estimates that 200 million people will be displaced by 2050, while the respected charity Christian Aid predicts 700 million in the same time frame. More important than specific 40-year forecasts is the conclusion of In Search of Shelter that climate change is “already causing migration and displacement.”

The report, jointly produced by the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security; CARE International, and Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University, says that the scope and scale of climate-induced migration will “could vastly exceed anything that has occurred before,” and that “people in the least developed countries and island states will be affected first and worst.”

The following points are from the report’s Executive Summary. The full In Search of Shelter report can be downloaded from here or here.

• Climate change is already contributing to displacement and migration. Although economic and political factors are the dominant drivers of displacement and migration today, climate change is already having a detectable effect.
• The breakdown of ecosystem-dependent livelihoods is likely to remain the premier driver of long-term migration during the next two to three decades. Climate change will exacerbate this situation unless vulnerable populations, especially the poorest, are assisted in building climate-resilient livelihoods.
• Disasters continue to be a major driver of shorter-term displacement and migration. As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of natural hazards such as cyclones, floods, and droughts, the number of temporarily displaced people will rise. This will be especially true in countries that fail to invest now in disaster risk reduction and where the official response to disasters is limited.
• Seasonal migration already plays an important part in many families’ struggle to deal with environmental change. This is likely to become even more common, as is the practice of migrating from place to place in search of ecosystems that can still support rural livelihoods.
• Glacier melt will affect major agricultural systems in Asia. As the storage capacity of glaciers declines, short-term flood risks increase. This will be followed by decreasing water flows in the medium- and long-term. Both consequences of glacier melt would threaten food production in some of the world’s most densely populated regions.
• Sea level rise will worsen saline intrusions, inundation, storm surges, erosion, and other coastal hazards. The threat is particularly grave vis-à-vis island communities. There is strong evidence that the impacts of climate change will devastate subsistence and commercial agriculture on many small islands.
• In the densely populated Ganges, Mekong, and Nile River deltas, a sea level rise of 1 meter could affect 23.5 million people and reduce the land currently under intensive agriculture by at least 1.5 million hectares. A sea level rise of 2 meters would impact an additional 10.8 million people and render at least 969 thousand more hectares of agricultural land unproductive.
• Many people won’t be able to flee far enough to adequately avoid the negative impacts of climate change-unless they receive support. Migration requires resources (including financial, social, and political capital) that the most vulnerable populations frequently don’t have. Case studies indicate that poorer environmental migrants can find their destinations as precarious as the places they left behind.

Woes of Aila Victims in Satkhira: Leaving cyclone shelters to become shelterless

Porimol Palma, back from Satkhira, The Daily Star, June 9, 2009

Concern for a dwelling place grips most of the people who went to cyclone centres or safe places before the May 25 cyclone Aila hit the southern region, as the storm washed away their modest homes.

The Aila victims, who have started returning homes after several days of stay at the shelter centres, are frustrated to find nothing left for their use.

Aila victims receiving pure drinking water from a plastic tank set by Brac at Atulia village in Shyamnagar upazila under Satkhira district yesterday.Photo: STAR

Meanwhile, diarrhoea has spread alarmingly in Satkhira district as the affected people are now compelled to drink polluted water.

Around 1.25 lakh people went to cyclone shelter centres before the cyclone.

“We were on the road for over a week. When we returned home four days ago, we found nothing left for use. We just put up a plastic shed on the yard to pass nights,” said Naosher Ali, 35, of Bharbharia village of Atulia, which is still reeling under water.

Ali, a landless day labourer, said now that all the shrimp enclosures are under water, there is no work and he has to depend fully on relief materials provided by the government or NGOs.

“But, what about my house? When there is rain, we have to run to others’ houses for shelter. But there is rarely any liveable house nearby,” he said.

During a visit to Mollapara and Bharbharia villages in Atulia union of Shyamnagar upazila in Satkhira on Sunday, this correspondent saw people sitting beside their ruined houses.

NGOs are now trying to reach remote areas like Padmapukur, Barapukur, Pakkhimari, Kamalkathi that saw scanty relief materials so far.

Golam Mostafa, Satkhira District Manager of Brac’s Health Programme, said they were providing food packets each containing 5 kg rice, one kg dal, half kg oil, half kg salt, one kg potato, matches, four oral saline packets to a family.

“We got inadequate relief materials. Above all, passing nights has become difficult for our five-member family,” said Abdul Jalil, another homeless person at Mollapara village.

It is difficult for him to go out to collect relief as there is water all around, he said.

Thousands of landless and homeless people have similar stories to tell.

According to preliminary official figure, around 2.5 lakh houses were fully damaged, around four lakh houses partially damaged and over 10 lakh livestock were killed by cyclone Aila, which hit hard Shyamnagar and Ashashuni in Satkhira, Koira and Dakope in Khulna, Charfashion and Monpura in Bhola and Galachipa and Kalapara upazilas in Patuakhali.

The Army and other government departments are working to repair the embankments, but intrusion of water during the high tide disturbs the work.

Our Satkhira Correspondent adds: Diarrhoea has broken out alarmingly in Aila-affected areas of Shyamnagar, Assassini, Kaliganj and Tala upazilas in the district.

At least 12,315 people were attacked with the water-borne disease since the cyclone lashed the coastal upazilas on May 25, according to district health department sources.

The water borne disease has broken out as the affected people are compelled to drink infected waters, Civil Surgeon Dr Md Ebadullah said.

“Sixty-two medical teams are working round the clock to treat the diarrhoea patients at medical camps in the Aila-affected areas. We have sufficient medicines to tackle the disease,” he said.

4 Aila-Hit Upazilas of Khulna: Study of 50,000 students stalled, cyclone victims still need succour

The Daily Star, June 7, 2009

Study of over 50,000 students is being hampered as the May 25 cyclone Aila followed by tidal surges damaged 487 academic institutions in four upazilas of Khulna district.

Meanwhile, mismanagement in relief distribution coupled with lack of materials adds to the sufferings of cyclone victims, many of them starving.

As many as 194 institutions have been damaged in Koira upazila while the number is 140 in Paikgachha, 78 in Batiaghata and 75 in Dakope upazila under the district.

Fifteen of them are colleges, 53 madrasas, 113 high schools and the others are government and non-government primary schools.

In the four upazilas, most of the 198 unharmed institutions have been made temporary shelters for the people who have turned homeless by the cyclone and tidal surges.

Many homeless people are still staying on embankments and in cyclone centres in remote areas of worst affected Koira and Dakope upazilas of Khulna district.

A large number of cyclone victims are suffering for want of food and pure drinking water while there are allegations of lack of coordination in distribution of relief goods.

The district administration has been facing a lot of problems due to lack of coordinated efforts in distribution of relief goods, said Paikgachha Upazila Nirbahi Officer Md Sabur Hossain.

It is very difficult to determine if worst victims are getting relief goods or some people are taking it more than once through unfair means, said Dakope upazila Chairman Abul Hossain.

Malpractice in distribution coupled with unavailability of relief materials have added to the sufferings of affected people, mostly starving, said Koira upazila Chairman Md Mohsin Reza.

Meanwhile, very little relief materials have reached Sharankhola and Morrelganj upazilas of Bagerhat district, sources said.

Dam breach panics people in southwest

Tapos Kanti Das . Khulna NewAge, June 7, 2009

Villagers in the southwest, still facing inundation because of tidal surges associated with cyclone Aila, were panicked as the flood water level suddenly rose by two feet on an average under the influence of full moon on Saturday.
   

According to locals and relief workers, the collapsed dams which were repaired by the locals again breached at No 2 Koyra, Padna, Patharkhali and Patakhali points under Koyra and Shyamnagar because of the sudden rise in water level.
   

‘Water is entering the villages overflowing the dams and at places the repaired portions of the dams breached again,’ Amjadul Islam, chairman of Padmapukur union council, said.
   

‘Most of the people have taken shelter on the high embankments and in the shelter houses and only a few were staying in their houses building platforms,’ he said. He also said he has asked the people living near the dams to move to safer places.
   

‘There is nobody in our village now. Our homesteads are inundated and we are worried as the dams breached again,’ said Shawkat Ali Sana of No 2 Koyra.
   

Koyra union council chairman HM Shahabuddin Ahmed said they were trying to repair the breached points.
   

A total of 594km embankment of the Water Development Board were damaged in Khulna including 90km in Koyra, 118km in Dacope, 200km in Paikgachha, 181km in Batiyaghata, 1km in Dumuria and 4km in Rupsa.
   

Meanwhile, waterborne diseases continued to spread in the inundated areas.
   

People were on rush for relief materials. It was raining almost everyday causing more sufferings to the people.
   

The Koyra upazila chairman, GM Mohsin Reza, told New Age that the people will not be able to survive if the dams were not repaired or reconstructed immediately.

Aila-affected family…

The Daily Star, June 6, 2009

This Aila-affected family of Jhapa in Shyamnagar of Satkhira starts building a home on an embankment with Gol Pata (Nypa) brought in from the mangrove forest.

Photo: Anisur Rahman

Coping with Aila devastation

Md. Asadullah Khan*, The Daily Star, June 6, 2009

BANGLADESH, during the last few decades, has been identified as a disaster prone area. It has been barely 16 months since the killer Sidr struck the coastline of Bangladesh and took a toll of 3,500 lives, according to official count, with huge loss of property and livestock.

Waiting for drinking water. Photo: AFP

Cyclone Aila, that hit the south western coast of Bangladesh on May 25, left a trail of devastation, killing at least 175 people, with several hundreds missing and several thousands injured, according to official count. The tidal surge that accompanied the cyclone caused widespread damage, affecting the lives and livelihood of about 33 lakh people, as revealed by an official handout of the Disaster Management Bureau.

The damage caused in Shyamnagore and Assasuni upazila under Satkhira district is extensive. People in these places don’t have any houses, water or sanitation facilities. In the words of Anwara Begum of Dumuria villge under Gabura union: “This is a living hell.” The air there is heavy with the stench of decomposed livestock washed away by the surging water from the rivers linked to the sea. The direst need in these places is drinking water.

Officials cannot get food and medicines across to the needy. Relief experts have an adage: “For the survivors of the natural disaster, a second man-made disaster may be looming.” Given Bangladesh’s dismal record in calamity management, it usually holds good. But with the government tackling the situation, this can be a different story.

With committed officials and a host of well meaning individuals and institutions, there can be a change in the lives of the shattered people. Unhappily, even seven days after the calamity, relief is meagre, food is scarce and government officials are conspicuous by their absence on the plea that disaster-hit areas are inaccessible.

Paradoxically true, most tragedies have no end, just a beginning. Equally true, most tragedies expose the bureaucratic bungling and political callousness that heighten the crisis. Octogenarian Golman Bibi of Bir Laxmi village and housewife Farida Khatun of Uttar Atulia, taking shelter on raised land, lament in desperation not for food but for a bottle of drinking water and a packet of Orsaline to save Farida’s diarrhea affected daughter. For the people of Shyamnagore, it’s a double-whammy. They not only faced the brunt of nature’s fury, but have to suffer government apathy as well.

The government’s task after the calamity is enormous. Confronted by an army of NGOs all offering to help, the problem before the government is efficient utilisation. The reports of the sufferings of the battered people, heightened by the scarcity of drinking water, coming in everyday seem almost too horrific to be true. But they are.

As reported by WDB officials, about 1430 sq km of embankments have been breached and, in Bhetkhali, Gabura, Jogindranagore and Protapnagore bordering the rivers linked with the sea, about 109 sq km of embankments have been totally washed away by the tidal surge, allowing intrusion of salt water over vast areas that will remain submerged unless the embankments are either built afresh or repaired.

Because of the submergence of land and ponds in salty water that continues to inundate the land bordering these rivers, drinking water will be hard to find.

It seems impossible for the government machinery to continue long-term relief, rescue and rehabilitation efforts. Even seven days after the tidal surge inundated Satkhira and Khulna, thousands are still without food, water, shelter or hope.

The key to combating a disaster of such proportions is speed, commitment and will, so that damage can be minimised and rescue, relief and rehabilitation is swift and effective. The government needs to appoint a disaster management coordinator from the civil administration or from the army to supervise the entire rehabilitation program.

A coordination centre must be set up, and placed in charge of the coordinator who will monitor all activities related to the repairing and building of embankments breached or washed away. One thing is certain. Proper utilisation of the money allocated for construction of the embankments is most important to avert future catastrophe.

One reason for the collapse of the embankments is the weak foundation of the embankments, caused by the plastic pipe pushed through the bed of the embankment for bringing in saline water from the river on the other side for the shrimp farms.

During my visit to Shyamnagore and Assasuni after the last Sidr disaster, I saw hundreds of such pipes. This must be stopped. The shrimp farm owners must be forced to pipe in saline water only through the sluice gates. Sure enough, the damage these areas suffered that time was trivial compared to what has happened this time.

If the administration or WDB fails to put the embankments in place at the earliest, no solution will work and there will be hundreds and thousands of Aila refugees who will have no other option but to migrate to high lands, preferably the district town Satkhira, for food and living.

The drinking water problem will haunt the cyclone victims for a long time. With advanced communication and warning systems available these days, Bangladesh can’t fail miserably in its response to such events.

We might recall that after the tsunami in 2004 in the coast of Tamil Nadu, its drinking water sources were polluted with excessive salt-water intrusion because of tidal surge. Responding to a call from the Tamil Nadu administration, Tata Projects Limited installed a desalination mobile van that could produce 3,500 litres of potable water per hour. The plant is still in operation now. The disaster management bureau should install such “kits” in coastal zones, operated by diesel engine.

In exceptional times, exceptional solutions have to be found. The real test of nations, governments and peoples is how they react to crises. If the availability of fresh water is endangered due to natural disasters, the government should employ the desalination process followed in the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia.

In the distillation-based desalination plants in the Gulf states, salty water is heated to produce vapour, which is then condensed to produce fresh potable water. But this could be a costly venture for Bangladesh because it uses a huge amount of electricity.

The second way is the reverse osmosis process — which is more flexible than distillation and often cheaper. Engineers at the California Metropolitan Water District (MWD), in collaboration with others, have come out with an economic breakthrough by designing a plant that uses aluminum instead of titanium and concrete instead of steel to keep construction costs down. These plants turn out water for less than 50 cents a cubic metre, with production capacity of 75m l/d.

With the region extending from Satkhira to Teknaf coming under the grip of salty water because of the frequency of natural hazards like cyclone and hurricane accompanied by tidal surge, the government is left with no other option but to go for desalination plants in these places to meet the cataclysmic situation resulting from such recurrent nightmares that seem to haunt the coastal population these days.

*Md. Asadullah Khan is a former teacher of physics and Controller of Examinations, BUET. aukhanbd@gmail.com

Water in south yet to recede

Tapos Kanti Das . Khulna and Nikhil Chatterjee . Patuakhali

NewAge, June 6, 2009

The number of makeshift shanties on both sides of the highways in southwest was increasing everyday with most part of the region still remaining inundated 11 days after the tidal surge associated with cyclone Aila on May 25.
   

In southern Patuakhali, people were struggling to cope with the flood water twice a day as the damaged embankments were yet to be repaired. The croplands and yards of their houses go under water during high tides and often water enters into their houses.
   

People who have taken shelter on both sides of Paikgachha-Koyra Road in Khulna said most of them lost the homesteads and took refuge in the shanties to draw attention of relief workers as no relief reached the remote villages.
   

More than 1.5 lakh people in six unions in Koyra have become homeless and almost every family in the area has been badly affected by the tidal surge, said the upazila administration.
   

Flood control embankment stretching more than four kilometres around four villages of Kalapara in Patuakhali was completely washed away on May 25, which caused regular inundation of 17 villages.
   

About 80 per cent dwelling houses in the villages face inundation twice a day as saline water submerges the villages during high tides.
   

Md Julfikar Ali of village Kalna of Koyra made his shanty beside the road collecting palm and coconut leaves, broken branches of trees and discarded plastic sheets and cartons. ‘I have lost everything including two cottages, two cows and seven poultry birds and now living in the shanty,’ he said.
   

‘People in the inundated villages need relief most, but the relief workers distribute it among the people staying in the roadside shanties and at the upazila headquarters,’ said Shamshur Rahman, chairman of Dakhkhin Bedkashi union council.
   

Sheraj Uddin Mridha, a farmer of Nawapara at Kalapara in Patuakhali, said if the flood-protection dams were not repaired, it will not be possible to cultivate paddy during the current aman season

People continue to suffer as water yet to recede

Staff Correspondent, NewAge, June 5, 2009

People marooned in the cyclone Aila-hit south-west continue to suffer as water was yet to recede from the areas after more than a week of inundation.
   

Waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea, skin diseases and pneumonia have broken out in the areas, said medical teams working in the remote areas.
   

People were seen roaming around for relief materials at Koyra and Paikgachha while thousands of families have taken shelter in makeshift shanties on the Khulna-Koyra Road.
   

The Koyra upazila chairman, GM Mohsin Reza, told New Age that most part of his upazila has been under water for the past ten days as water did not recede.
   

The superintendent engineer of the Khulna Water Development Board, Mostaq Ahmed, said they could not flush out the logged water from a number of the areas as the damaged embankments were not repaired or reconstructed.
   

Local people alleged that the chairmen and members of the union councils were conducting electioneering for the local government elections and distributing relief goods only among their prospective voters.
   

Shawkat Ali Sana of village No 2 Koyra, who has taken shelter in a shanty on the road, said the union council chairmen and members were giving relief among their chosen people in the shelters. ‘They are doing vote-business satisfying their supporters first,’ he said.
   

The Koyra union council chairman, Shahabuddin Ahmed, however, denied the allegation, saying he was distributing the relief goods properly.
   

The Koyra upazila chairman, GM Mohsin Reza, admitted that they were yet to reach every person despite sincere attempts.
   

He also said people from different localities lodged complaints with him about the nepotism and mismanagement by the union council chairmen and members.

Development partners assure Bangladesh govt of $13m in Aila grant

Staff Correspondent, NewAge, June 5, 2009

Development partners have assured the government of immediate disbursement of $13 million as grants for repairing dams, cross-dams and embankments in the cyclone Aila-ravaged coastal districts, official sources said.
   

The assurance came in an inter-ministerial meeting with development partners at the Planning Commission on Thursday.
   

‘Three donors – World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency — have assured the government that they would disburse the amount immediately,’ said a senior official of the Economic Relation Division on Thursday after the meeting.
   

The official also said the development partners would not curtail the existing development project amounts because of this fresh assistance.
   

Sources said the prime minister’s economic affairs adviser, Mashiur Rahman, presided over the meeting on the possible strategies for mitigating the impact of Cyclone ‘Aila’. The World Bank country director, Xian Zhu, ADB country director Paul J Heytens, JICA representatives and high officials of the water resources ministry also attended the meeting.
   

‘The government has sought fund from the development partners what will be immediately needed for repairs to the damaged dams and embankments,’ Mashiur Rahman told the meeting.
   

He also said the long-term and medium-term assistance would be decided in the several consultation meetings with the water resources ministry.
   

The meeting sources said the water resources ministry would a hold a meeting with the development partners on Saturday at the secretariat on the long and medium-term assistance for the Aila-affected country’s south-western coast areas.
   

According to the meeting, the Water Development Board would need $62.46 million for repairing the water-related infrastructure but the board urgent needs $16.86 million.
   

Meanwhile, the finance ministry has already disbursed Tk 116 crore for the Aila-affected areas. Of the amount, Tk 41 crore is meant for repairing the dams and embankments while the rest will be used for food for work programme in.