Villagers in Aila-hit southern regions scramble to survive

The Daily Star, May 31, 2009

Cyclone Aila has battered the lives of people in the southern region of the country. Survivors who cheated death are now in dire need of food, water and shelter as they come to terms with their losses. Photos by Anisur Rahman from Shyamnagar upazila. (1) A woman from Jhapa village in Padmapukur union shows journalists the paddy — now rotting — destroyed in the cyclone. (2) A homeless couple eats rice distributed from a relief point at Buri Goalini village. (3) An elderly survivor from Dumuria village, Daud Ali Gazi, gestures with his hand as he describes how he lost everything in the cyclone. (4) Lucky survivors make their way out from Buri Goalini village with whatever they could salvage, looking for safer grounds. (5) People in Atulia crowd a van (not in picture) that has brought drinking water for the survivors. (6) A cow is tied in front of the makeshift shack of its owners on top of a river embankment. (7) With the few belongings she could save, Shahanara Begum has taken shelter with her young children at an office building in Atulia union. (8) Villagers push a tractor through the water to take it to higher land.

Photo: The Daily Star

Woes prolong for damaged dam: people in Satkhira village work round the clock to repair it

Wasim Bin Habib and Abu Ahmed, from Satkhira, The Daily Star, May 31, 2009

Saline water rushes into villages of Gabura Union in Shyamnagar upazila in Satkhira yesterday through a breach in the embankment during high tide. Inset, people of Kurikaunia of Pratapnagar in Assasuni upazila themselves mend an embankment damaged by Aila to protect their homes in high tide.

Photo: Anisur Rahman/The Daily Star

Survivors of Cyclone Aila in Shyamnagar upazila, one of the worst-hit areas in Satkhira, have no choice but to fight for survival.

Some scared that the damaged embankment can give away at any point are already leaving the area in search of safer shelter.

Others are working round the clock to safeguard whatever little left spared by the cyclone and water.

A group of 30-35 men were busy yesterday trying to repair the destroyed embankment in Khalishabunia village under Gabura union parishad.

They pleaded with The Daily Star correspondents for help to repair the embankment.

“If the embankment is not repaired, our last belongings will be washed way, our children will die. Please do something,” pleaded a tearful Abdul Alim.

“Where can we go, there is no place remaining,” he cried.

Maksudul Sheikh, another villager is still in search of shelter.

“Repairing the embankment is very urgent, at least we can live on it then,” he said.

The embankment, though broken at many points, is already swarming with people who have sought shelter here. Some families are forced to take shelter in separate places because of the lack of space to be together.

“Everything has been washed away, our clothes, cooking pots — everything,” said the visibly helpless Maksudul.

Not a single house in the 20 villages under Gabura union — which once housed 37,000 people — has been spared. The embankment has been damaged at 31 points by the tidal surge. Most of the trees were uprooted and washed away.

Many inhabitants of Padmapukur, Burigowalini, Munshiganj, Atulia and Ramzannagar unions under Shyamnagar upazila and some unions of Asshashuni have started leaving the area in fear of being inundated by rising water levels.

At least six unions in the upazila were badly affected. The situation in Asshashuni is no better.

In Dumuria, Chalkbara, Shora-9, Shora-10 and other villages under Gabura upazila, the wrecked embankment is the only safe place for shelter.

Almost all the inhabitants have set up makeshift shacks on it. They are still reeling from the shock of the devastation. Many are sleeping under the open sky. Though they have received food in aid, there is an acute shortage of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities.

Octogenarian Daud Ali Gazi came to Dumuria from Shora-9, losing everything he had built over generations.

Anowara Begum, a resident of Dumuria village in Gaburia union, summed it up saying, “No house, no water, this is a living hell.”

She walks all the way to Shora-9 village to collect drinking water from a pond there that has not been contained yet.

“We can’t even find a place or facility to cook food, how can we boil water?” she asked.

Meanwhile, diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases are spreading fast among the survivors.

Sheikh Abdul Aziz said almost all the houses in his village Shora-9 were washed away. The few remaining are submerged in waist-deep water.

In the meantime, hundreds of affected people have started moving elsewhere fearing another tidal surge and heavy rainfall. People fear that the temporarily repaired portions of the embankments will not hold for long.

With his family of 24 members, Sheikh Wajed Ali, 71, moved from Shora-10 village to his cousin’s in Parulia.

He said, “What should we do? We have no shelter, food and water here. Besides, the villages can go under water any moment.”

Cracks were found at many points of the embankment at Protapnagar union in Asshashuni upazila on Friday. The inhabitants of Gaburia union said they are repairing small breaches, as it is not possible to handle the large cracks in the embankment.

Salauddin Bappi, a local social worker, said the repairs on the embankments should be done under experts’ supervision.

Lutfur Rahman, executive engineer of Division-1 of Water Development Board (WDB), told The Daily Star that approximately 26.6-kilometre stretch of the embankment covering eight unions in Shyamnagar upazila was totally destroyed and a 134-km stretch was partially damaged.

“We have estimated over Tk 90 crore for repairing the damage, damage prevention and sluice gate. We have asked for a sanction of Tk 13 crore on emergency basis,” he added.

Executive Engineer of WDB Division-2 Mujibur Rahman Hawlader said around 3.5 km of the embankment in Asshashuni upazila was washed away and 98 km was partially damaged, of which a 21-km stretch is in dire straits.

The embankment may give away any moment, he added.

He said they have estimated a cost of Tk 26.74 lakh to rebuild the damaged embankment.

“We have also asked the government to sanction Tk 5.5 crore on an emergency basis to repair the damages in Asshashuni upazila.”

The Health Minister AFM Ruhul Haque has meanwhile said, “We will repair the damaged parts of embankments at any cost.”

He also said he had asked the Satkhira Deputy Commissioner to form a committee and take necessary measures for reconstructing the breached embankments by June.

Meanwhile, the health minister, Army Chief Gen Moeen U Ahmed, State Minister for Labour Monnujan Sufian and Khulna City Mayor Talukder Abdul Khaleque visited different Aila-hit villages in Shyamnagar.

Many Aila-hit Areas Still Under Water: Diarrhoea takes alarming turn, cry for food, water

The Daily Star, May 30, 2009

Diarrhoea spreads fast in some upazilas of Satkhira, Khulna and Barisal districts as thousands of cyclone-affected people there are forced to drink contaminated and salty water.

With almost all tube-wells, ponds and other waterbodies under saline water, people of Shyamnagar and Assasuni upazilas in Satkhira and Dakop and Koira in Khulna are left with no sources of safe drinking water.

Clockwise: People of Padmapukur union under Shyamnagar upazila in Satkhira queue up on an embankment yesterday for relief. A man in quest of drinking water at Atulia union. Women suffering from diarrhoea take refuge at the staircase of a shelter home at the same union. Fish washed away from ponds by tidal surge lay dead near an embankment in Assasuni upazila. An elderly man collects relief materials at Atulia. Saline water rushes into Pakhimara of Padmapukur union through a breach in the embankment of the Kholpetua River.

Photo: Anisur Rahman/Daily Star

Meanwhile, thousands of people marooned in remote char areas have been starving even five days into Cyclone Aila that ripped through the south-western coast on Monday.

As of yesterday evening, the death toll from the storm was 183. Official sources however put it at 155.

“Supply of clean water cannot even meet one-fourth of the need,” said a diarrhoea victim.

In Shyamnagar of Satkhira, around 600 people are down with diarrhoea every day, Dr Mohammad Ebadullah, district’s civil surgeon, told The Daily Star.

The locals, however, said the number is much higher than what the civil surgeon claims.

Our correspondent from Khulna reports: Over 4,000 people marooned by floodwater at Kamarkhola, Sutarkhali, Tildanga, and Banishanta unions have got diarrhoea in the last four days, said Kazi Atiur Rahman, upazila nirbahi officer (UNO) of Dakop upazila in Khulna.

Union chairmen said the water-borne diseases like diarrhoea are taking an alarming turn because of scant supply of medicines and water purification tablets.

Around 2,000 people stranded in five unions of Koira upazila have contracted diarrhoea, said locals.

Arif Pasha, UNO of Koira, disputed the number. He claimed only six persons have been admitted to the upazila health complex with diarrhoea, and of them, only one is in critical condition.

He however admitted that medical teams are struggling to reach many areas, as road communications there remain snapped.

In Shyamnagar, yet-to-be-buried bodies of livestock have started rotting and spreading sickening stench. Moreover, a huge amount of dead fish, snakes and other animals were floating on the water, making the air fetid.

People queuing in front of Atulia Union Parishad Health Complex for medicine said scarcity of drinking water has left them no alternative but to drink contaminated water.

Mujibur Morol said he needs medicine for his mother suffering severe stomach pain and vomiting for the last two days.

Those in the inaccessible areas are suffering most as they have to walk a long way for water and food distributed at the upazila headquarters.

Jarina Khatun said, “I had to wade waist-deep through floodwater to come here for some rice and medicine for my four-year-old girl down with diarrhoea.”

Lokman Ahmed, a medical officer in Atulia Health Complex, said he distributed medicines to 400 diarrhoea patients throughout the day Thursday and 200 in only one and a half hours yesterday.

“The number of patients is rising, and the medicines we have are not enough to meet the demand,” he said.

Nazrul Islam, health assistant of the upazila health complex, said, “We urgently need oral saline and medicines to cope with the rising cases of diarrhoea and dysentery.”

On the main road in Atulia, many were seen waiting for water for hours. They alleged they were not getting basic relief like drinking water and food.

The diarrhoea situation is getting worse at Padmapukur, Gabura, Burigowalini, Munshiganj, Bhetkhali, Pratapnagar, Assasuni Sadar, Khajra, Anulia, Borodal unions under Shyamnagar and Assasuni upazilas.

District Civil Surgeon Ebadullah said as many as 25 medical teams were giving health care services in these two upazilas.

Our correspondent from Barisal reports: Most of the people in remote villages under Amtali upazila of Barguna have not yet seen any relief from government or non-government aid agencies.

Barisal district administration and relief and rehabilitation department sources said so far they have distributed Tk 2.10 lakh in cash and 210 tonnes of rice. And now they have only 10 tonnes of rice and no cash at all.

Health Minister ABM Ruhul Haque who visited the cyclone-hit areas in Shyamnagar upazila told The Daily Star that his ministry is supplying sufficient medicines to contain spread of diarrhoea.

Food and Disaster Management Minister Abdur Razzaque yesterday visited Hatia upazila of Noakhali and distributed relief materials among the survivors. He said the government has adequate relief to tackle the situation.

Land remains submerged as riverbeds go higher

Tapos Kanti Das, Khulna. NewAge, May 30, 2009

Areas in the south and south-west lying lower than the sea-level may remain inundated for long, compounding the sufferings of the people, said experts and the organizations working with water related issues.
   

People affected by cyclone Aila take refuse on the ground floor of a government shelter centre intruded by flood water at Shyamnagar in Satkhira on Friday. Photo: Focusbangla/NewAge 

The areas were submerged as tidal surges whipped up as high as 13 feet by cyclone Aila, which crossed over Sagar Island into India Monday evening, fell over the land crossing the embankment.
   

Koyra, Dacope and part of Paikgachha and Dumuria in Khulna, Shyamnagar and part of Assassuni and Tala in Satkhira and part of Sarankhola, Morrelganj and Mongla in Bagerhat were worst affected. Many stretches of embankments also breached in the places, said sources in administration.
   

Sources in the Water Development Board said 48.965km stretch of embankment had been fully destroyed and 218.15km of stretch had been damaged partially in Khulna.


Water that collected during the tidal surges cannot recede as the Kapatakshi, Marichchap and Bhadra rivers, which have their beds silted over the years, were flowing above the low-lying areas in places such as Shyamnagar, Tala and Assassuni in Satkhira, Paikgachha, Koyra and Dumuria in Khulna, the Paani Committee presidentm ABM Shafiqul Islam, said.
   

He said the riverbeds are higher by one to three feet than low-lying areas in places and in other places the river bends are on a level with the low-lying areas. He said it was time the rivers were dredged lower than the low-lying areas.
   

Khulna University environmental science professor Md Salequzzaman said water had entered even the villages which had never been submerged in such cases in about 100 years.
   

He said if proper measures were not taken to flush out the water collected on the land lower than the riverbeds, a large area in the southwest, such as Bhabadaha Bil in Jessore, may remain dry permanently.
   

Salequzzaman said for water collected on the land to recede, it is imperative to drain water out of the river first.
   

In places where the river bends and the land are on a the same plane, the embankments need to be cut to allow water to be flushed out during ebb tide and then the embankments should be constructed properly, he said.
   

Shankar Kumar Das, 38, a resident of Atghara at Tala in Satkhira, said the River Kapatakshi flowing by the village had been silted up and the water collected on the land could not be flushed out as the riverbed is higher than the land. People need to wait for the sun to dry up the water collected on the low-lying areas.
   

Khulna division Water Development Board executive engineer Zulfikar Ali Hawlader said the department was taking measures to construct and repair the damaged or destroyed embankment stretchers and to flush out the water that collected on the land during the cyclone.

Birds eye view: southwest Bangladesh after the cyclone

Image: Iftekhar Mahmud

 

 

 

Aila victims cry for water, food

The Daily Star, May 29, 2009

Photo: Star

In the aftermath of Cyclone Aila, thousands of villagers in Bagerhat, Satkhira, Khulna, Bhola and Noakhali now cry for food and drinking water for survival, as relief operations are insufficient to deal with the enormity of the situation.

People, living in remote areas, are the worst-sufferers, as relief materials could not reach them even after four days of the cyclone Aila that smashed the coastal belt on Monday, UNB correspondents report after visiting different affected places.

In some places, people are forced to drink polluted water to quench their thirst.

Diarrhoea has broken out in the cyclone-hit areas and it may soon take epidemic form unless the government provides water purification tablets and medicines to people in such areas.

Medical teams are not sufficient to treat hundreds of diarrhoea patients. Four people have so far died of diarrhoea in Satkhira, reports UNB correspondent.

Food and Disaster Management Minister Abdur Razzaque had nearly a four-hour meeting till 1:00am today in Satkhira with the local administration to ensure supply of relief materials for Aila victims.

Lt Col Zillur Rahman, who is coordinating the army relief activities in Satkhira, told the meeting in presence of food and disaster management minister that relief did not reach many remote areas when the government officials claimed sending relief materials to each remote area.

“A woman dropped to my foot and begged simply for a bottle of water to give her kid who remained unfed for the last three days,” the army officer said while narrating the actual scenario of relief distribution.

UNB Bhola correspondent said many people remain half-fed for the last three days. “Some local NGOs are working with the government but supply of relief materials is very poor,” he said.

Many people were stranded in some 20 isolated chars where government relief has not reached yet.

UNB Khulna correspondent said people were not prepared for such disaster. People’s misery has doubled, as the government could not send the cyclone warning quickly, like it had done before the Cyclone Sidr.

He said over 200 people are still missing in Khulna and survivors in remote areas are crying for food and water.

A resident in Hatiya of Noakhali told UNB that three navy ships have distributed relief packets containing 500 grams of chira (flattened rice), one candle and a bottle of water.

They distributed 250 such packets at Tamruddin union and 125 each at Char King union and Sukhchar on Wednesday, he said adding that the relief was too scanty to meet the demand.

Amena Begum, a 63-year-old woman at Padmapukur union in Satkhira, said: “I can’t express my grief, everything seems meaningless. How can I survive as my key means of earning, a cow, has died. Also I’m homeless now.”

Mamunur Rahman, another cyclone victim from the same union, said he is in great trouble, unable to manage food for his three-member family. He said he had been given meager relief only once.

“I can’t say how I feel when my three-year-old child Nazma cries for food. I can’t do anything,” he said, adding that he would manage to survive with his family if drinking water could be found.

A similar scenario prevailed everywhere, as the correspondents found while talking to dozens of people in Bhola, Satkhira, Khulna and Hatiya.

Most of the people were seen crying for water, food and fuel to cook foods.

Diarrhoea has broken out in the cyclone-hit coastal areas of Bagerhat, Khulna, Satkhira, Bhola and Hatiya for lack of safe drinking water. Inadequate medical teams and medicines have made the situation critical, UNB correspondents said.

Satkhira Civil Surgeon Dr Md Ebadullah told the reporters that 37 medical teams are working in the affected areas of the district.

Cyclone strands millions in India and Bangladesh

By Sujoy Dhar, AlertNet, May 29, 2009

KOLKATA, India, May 29 (Reuters) – Millions of people in India and Bangladesh remained marooned without food or water on Friday, four days after cyclone Aila hit them, and authorities said disease was becoming a serious problem.

The cyclone killed at least 275 people, but officials say the toll could mount due to epidemics in the aftermath.

Cyclone Aila hit parts of coastal Bangladesh and eastern India on Monday, triggering tidal surges and floods and destroying hundreds of thousands of homes.

It caused extensive damage to rice and other crops but officials say they were still assessing the losses.

In the communist-ruled Indian state of West Bengal, at least 5.1 million people were displaced, with more than one million people stranded in Sundarban islands alone, most of them without any food or water, officials said.

At least 100 people have died in the eastern state.

“The situation is alarming and we need a lot of help to combat the outbreak of water-borne diseases,” Kanti Ganguly, a senior West Bengal minister, told Reuters on Friday.

Heavy rains triggered by the cyclone raised river levels and burst mud embankments in the Sundarbans delta, causing widespread flooding and triggering landslides.

The Indian Air force air-dropped supplies to remote islands in the Sundarabans on Friday, and people scampered to grab packets of pre-cooked food, water and medicines, witnesses said.

“We are carrying out sorties every day and we have been able to cover some remote places today,” Mahesh Upasani, a defence ministry spokesman, said in Kolkata, capital of West Bengal state.

In Bangladesh, more than three million people have been hit by the cyclone, and cases of diarrhoea have broken out, due to an acute scarcity of drinking water.

The death toll from cyclone Aila in Bangladesh touched 175 after 15 bodies were found on Thursday, mostly in southwestern Satkhira district, local officials and aid workers said on Friday.

Officials said hundreds of people were missing in the 15 affected districts, mostly on the coasts, where survivors desperately need food and drinking water.

The cyclone also killed a large number of cattle, adding to the woes of farmers still trying to get back on their feet after cyclone Sidr in November 2007 killed 3,500 people in coastal districts.

(Additional reporting by Ruma Paul; Writing by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Bill Tarrant) (bappa.majumdar@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging: bappa.majumdar.reuters.com@reuters.net, +91-11-41781000) (If you have a query or comment on this story, send an email to news.feedback.asia@thomsonreuters.com)

South Asia cyclone contaminates water sources

Nita Bhalla, AlertNet, May 28, 2009

Tens of thousands of cyclone survivors in India and Bangladesh desperately need clean water after the storm contaminated drinking sources with sea water, aid agencies say.

Relief workers also warned the death toll could soar if there are outbreaks of water-borne diseases following massive flooding.

Packing winds of up 100 kph (60 mph), cyclone Aila slammed into eastern India and Bangladesh on Monday, killing at least 240 people and injuring over 6,500.

The storm whipped up 13-foot (4-metre) tidal surges which tore through embankments, sweeping away homes, ravaging crops and damaging roads and bridges.

About 4.6 million people in India’s West Bengal state and around 3.7 million living along Bangladesh’s coastal belt are estimated to have been affected.

Dozens are still missing, including a group of 16 children in India who were playing in an abandoned house which was washed away by a raging river in North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal.

As government officials and aid workers scramble to help, they say there is a dire shortage of clean drinking water because sea water has inundated hundreds of rivers, ponds and wells.

“The tidal waves and the upward flow of sea water into river deltas have deposited saline water contaminating all drinking water sources,” said Dr P.V. Unnikrishnan, ActionAid’s emergency coordinator for Asia.

“There is an urgent need to provide clean drinking water as well as clean up all the contaminated water sources.”

In India, eight districts in West Bengal, including the city of Kolkata, were affected while in Bangladesh, 15 districts including Barisal, Satkhira, Barguna, Khulna and Patuakhali were seriously affected.

Some areas remain inaccessible as roads, railways and bridges have been damaged and aid workers fear hundreds of villagers are stranded with little assistance.

DISEASE WARNING

Aid workers say thousands of people, who had sought refuge in cyclone shelters, schools and other buildings, are beginning to return home to find their houses destroyed, their fields submerged and their livestock dead.

“Families have lost their homes, livestock, crops, access to work and food and, in many cases, clean water and sanitation,” said Ned Olney, vice president of Save the Children’s global humanitarian response.

“We are working to get water treatment plants up and running so that a bad situation does not get much worse through the spread of disease.”

There are fears of outbreaks of water-borne diseases in the coming days, followed by illnesses like malaria in the coming weeks.

“Hygiene risks are becoming a major issue as dead fish and livestock decompose – cholera, diarrhoea and skin infections are all expected to rise,” said a situation report by Save the Children India.

Aid workers say engaging communities in helping to clean up water sources through cash-for-work programmes should be initiated now rather than as part of the early recovery phase.

They add that sanitary services such as building pit latrines, provision of basic sanitation items such as toilet paper and soap as well as public health education could help control the spread of diseases.

“We are fortunate that the number of deaths in this disaster is relatively less,” said Unnikrishnan.

“But as has happening in the past, we could find more people dying from preventable diseases than from the direct impact of the disaster if we do not take action now.”

MONSOONS

The inundation of salt water has also destroyed paddy crops and rendered some agricultural land unusable.

While most villagers managed to harvest their rice paddy before the disaster, many had not sold their stocks, which were washed away in the floods.

Relief workers say the flood waters have also washed away seeds and destroyed stocks of freshwater fish and shrimp.

There are hopes that monsoons due in the coming weeks will flush out fields, ponds and rivers and also provide drinking water to affected communities.

“The monsoons will really help relief efforts as far as water issues are concerned as we can then get people to harvest the rain water, rather than dealing with trucking in water and supplying water purifications tablets,” said Dr Babar Kabir, director of Bangladesh development organisation BRAC’s disaster programme.

“Water is the immediate need but we will indeed have to look at long-term recovery for many people.”

Cyclone Aila’s death toll is misleading

According to the United Nations, some 262 million people were affected by natural disasters annually between 2000 and 2004, over 98 per cent of them in the developing world, writes Mahtab Haider*

NewAge, May 29, 2009

EVEN as the death toll from this week’s cyclone Aila inches upwards as communications are restored in affected areas, it is obvious that the total number of deaths will not be nearly a tenth of the numbers killed in cyclone Sidr in 2007. And yet, the devastation that Aila has caused, a month after cyclone Bijli tore through coastal villages and a year and a half since the devastation of cyclone Sidr, brings home an important lesson: perceiving the ferocity of cyclones by their death toll can be tremendously misleading when a community’s coping capacity is worn thin, as they are repeatedly buffeted by extreme natural events.
   

The reality is, cyclone Aila has not had a fraction of the international media coverage that cyclone Sidr had received even though for hundreds of thousands of families in the coastal zone, this week may well be the tipping point that will see them driven to penury or astronomical debt in trying to recover from what was deemed to be a moderate cyclone. The reasons are simple. Coastal communities are no strangers to cyclones. They have lived with them for centuries and they have an organic ability to bounce back after an extreme weather event, with the help of savings, enterprise, and resilience. The problem is: the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones is gradually on the rise, largely as a result of man-made global warming and rising sea surface temperatures, wearing down the organic coping capacities of these communities, and seeing them slip deeper and deeper into poverty.
   

Over the past three years, rising food costs have taken their toll on marginal and small farming families across Bangladesh, their economic misery compounded by two back-to-back floods in 2007 and cyclone Sidr to end the year with another massive destruction of standing crops. These manifold crises have often compelled farming families either to sell of their small landholdings or their farming implements to survive – along with the attendant realities of pulling children out of schools and sending them to work as agricultural labour or in the cities. What all this means is that these hundreds of thousands of families have suffered an economic setback that may take more than two generations to recover from – as it is only their children’s children who might have an opportunity to go back to school. The economic and social consequence of this series of back-to-back events is that many of the development goals that governments, not just in Bangladesh, but across the world have set for themselves, including the Millennium Development Goals, will be confronted with dead ends as changing weather patterns undo much of the good that development policies and practices are achieving.
   

Bangladesh, though it shares this plight with many other countries, faces a tremendous development challenge in the decades to come. A study of global climate change risk hotspots by the aid agency CARE reveals that we face some of the highest levels of risk in terms of a rising incidence of floods, droughts as well as cyclones. While scientists refuse to attribute any particular weather event to climate change – it is scientifically sound that the trends in changing weather patterns are not only confirming the reality of man-made climate change but also indicating that patterns are changing at a speed and with greater severity than predicted. According to last year’s annual UN Human Development Report, ‘sea levels could rise rapidly with accelerated ice sheet disintegration. Global temperature increases of 3–4°C could result in 330 million people being permanently or temporarily displaced through flooding.’ Over 70 million these displaced are predicted to be in Bangladesh alone.
   

For Bangladesh, one of the biggest casualties of climate change is going to be agriculture and food security. As armies of small farmers find it increasingly difficult to cope with unpredictable weather patterns and failing crops, they will often be compelled to sell their landholdings, destroying the foundations of traditional food security in the rural economy. In aggregate too, countries like Bangladesh will produce less and less of its own food – with the small farmer who constitutes the backbone of food production on the retreat, plunging those millions of families that will not have the means of buying imported staples into deeper malnutrition. According to the UNHDR, the additional ranks of the malnourished could rise by 600 million by the year 2080. Side by side, drought affected areas in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, could rise between 60-90 million hectares at a cost of over $26 billion, which is more than the total current aid that goes to the region. As if that were not enough, seven of Asia’s great rivers will initially experience rising water levels resulting in floods as a result of glacial in the Himalayan range, before they start drying up – causing unimaginable devastation in the deltas they flow through.
   

The reality is that the worst excesses of this fallout from global warming and climate change will be felt in some of the poorest regions of the world, to the very people who are far removed from the industrial and consumption excesses that are responsible for greenhouse gases and unsustainable energy use. According to the UN, some 262 million people were affected by natural disasters annually between 2000 and 2004, over 98 per cent of them in the developing world. In the countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development on in 1,500 people were affected by natural disasters. In the developing world the comparable statistic was 1 in 19. It is for these reasons that the heads of state meeting in Copenhagen later this year to negotiate a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol must act decisively and with the political will necessary to avert an mitigate and adapt to a disaster of global proportions.


*Mahtab Haider writes for NewAge, a leading english daily in Dhaka. 

E-mail: mahtabhaider@gmail.com

No relief in remote south yet

Official death toll rises to 147

NewAge, May 29, 2009

Vast areas of Kalapara in Patuakhali in Bangladesh’s south remain inundated still on Thursday, three days after the submersion caused by cyclone Aila on Monday.

Photo: Focusbangla/NewAge

No relief materials reached many remote areas in the south and south-west left battered by tidal surges whipped up by cyclone Aila even three days after the inundation in which thousands of people were marooned without food and drinking water.
   

The unofficial death toll rose to 178. The disaster management ministry on Thursday confirmed the death of 147 people.
   

The disaster management minister, Abdur Razzak, said the government had already distributed Tk 2.23 crore and allocated Tk 30 crore more for relief operations in 76 upazilas of the 15 districts affected by tidal surges and associated storm.
   

Fourteen thousand tonnes of food have been distributed among the affected and 5,000 more tonnes have been allocated for distribution, he said.
   

Reports reaching from Bhola said no relief materials had reached the remote chars such as Daulatkhan, Lalmohan, Charfasson, Monpura and the district headquarters till Wednesday afternoon. Some relief materials were dropped from air force helicopters at Dhal Char three days after the incident.
   

People at Char Kukri Mukri, Dhal Char and Char Patila, some 80km off the Charfassion headquarters, have still been marooned. They are left with no water to drink.
   

Fazilat Begum of Dakshin Syedpur at Daulatkhan took shelter in a nearby school during the inundation, but she found no food there. She tried to return home along with her four children, but could not find her house as it was washed away.
   She could collect half a kilogram of flattened rice till Wednesday and, along with her one-year-old son, Nayan, tried to live on that small amount of food.
   

The Charfasson upazila nirbahi officer, Mostafa Kamal, said relief materials could not be reached to remote areas for adverse weather. ‘A small amount of relief materials could be dropped off helicopter at Dhal Char on Wednesday amid rough weather,’ he said.
   

The New Age correspondent in Khulna said people who took shelter in schools, colleges and on high land were facing severe scarcity of food and drinking water as relief goods reached there were inadequate. Relief workers found it tough to reach remote areas as road communications have completely broken down.
   

People in 23 villages of Paikgachha and three villages of Koyra were yet to get any relief materials even on Thursday. They were going without food and drinking water, said Pradip Mahalder, the president of the Agriculture and Environment Conservation Committee.
   

Villagers said diarrhoea had broken out in different places of the upazila while sources in Koyra health complex said they had treated more than 50 people suffering from the disease.
   

Local government representatives of Sutarkhali, Kamarkhola and Tildanga at Dacope said people in the areas were yet get any relief materials.
   

The upazila administration said the Mongla Port authorities had reached 200 tonnes of drinking water in barges and distributed it among the affected.
   

The Koyra upazila nirbahi officer, MM Arif Pasha, said relief operation had so far been inadequate in remote areas as it became very difficult to reach there. He said the administration was trying to reach the places at the earliest.
   

At least 176 villages in seven upazilas in Patuakhali were still under water, reports the correspondent in the district.
   

Water cannot recede as the Water Development Board sluice gates have been captured by some local influential people and ruling party leaders to stop water from being flushed out for fish farming, local people said.
   

The residents requested the influential people to open the sluice gates so that water could recede into the canals or rivers, but their requests went unheeded, they said.
   

Patuakhali Water Development Board executive engineer Md Zahirul Islam told New Age he had received a number of such allegations. ‘All the sluice gates will be opened in two to three days.’
   

People of Nijhum Dwip, Naler Char, Chairman Bazar, Boyar Char, Caring Char, Patar Char, Mujib Bazar, Batan Khali Bazar and Char Nongolia at Hatiya were still marooned. They were passing their days half-fed, and even unfed, as relief operations were yet to begin in the areas, reports the correspondent in Noakhali.
   

Eighty per cent of the homesteads in the areas have been damaged by the tidal surges. The people marooned in the places are also facing acute shortage of drinking water as the tube wells went under saline water. About 7,000 families lost their houses and were passing their days on embankment along the River Meghna under the open sky.


Amena Khatun of Naler Char said they were yet to get any help but some flattened rice and a bottle of water.
   

The Noakhali deputy commissioner in-charge, Dipak Chakraborty, said the district administration had allocated 50 tonnes of rice and Tk 1.5 lakh in cash for the people marooned at Hatiya.