OPINION

The country has yet to start watching the repeated onslaughts of nor'westers, the summertime tornadoes. These storms make their swoops all of a sudden, giving people little time to take preparations to deal with the destructive force of the storm. As a result, deaths and damages to dwelling houses and other properties turn out to be an annual scenario. Although, nor'westers, 'Kaalboishakhi' in Bangla, normally begin striking the country from the Bangla month of Baishakh (April-May), lately they have started wreaking havoc with rural areas much ahead of the normal times. Nor'westers during February-end to March these days are a common occurrence. These untimely catastrophes take the rural people off guard, turning them awfully helpless. However, people across the country have by now become used to this erratic behaviour of nature. Weathermen in general blame this erratic pattern of nor'wester strikes on climate change and scores of other factors.

While counting losses, incurred from damages to crops and the strong wind's impact on weakly-built and makeshift dwelling houses, the villagers brace for further hazards. Besides sinking of country boats and engine-driven vessels, drowning is a normal spectacle during the storms. Over the last few years, deadly lightning strikes have emerged as a great dread in the rural areas. There are no campaigns in place to tell the largely uneducated masses about the causes of the continued rise in natural catastrophes. Being in the dark about the consequences of tampering with nature, tree felling being one of them, they find no options except putting the blame on their luck. Work on preventive or loss-reducing measures round the year could save scores of people from facing the wrath of nature. One thing has become clear. The frequency of seasonal storms is rising with every passing year. Their increasing ferocity continues to add to the bewilderment and sufferings of the people.

In the past, the wise old men and women could successfully decipher the esoteric aspects of nature. They were said to be gifted with a prescience enabling them to make people aware of the coming natural calamities. They were no seers. But experience and sharp observation would make them enriched with rare insights and knowledge about life and nature. In the face of the topsy-turvy state of the climate worldwide, their predictions now often prove wrong. The irony is it is not only these people gifted with centuries-old folk knowledge who discover themselves fooled by nature's erratic behaviour, there are others, too. The most important segment of them constitutes the climatologists themselves. Many of them nowadays find themselves to be quite helpless before the inscrutability of the global climate. But the stark reality is worse days are ahead. Irrespective of the rich or poor's scoring in global context, every nation is vulnerable to climate change impacts in its unique way.

Bangladesh was once synonymous with destructive floods and droughts. In a couple of decades their frequencies and prevalence have undergone changes. The alarming rise in the number and intensity of nor'westers is fast becoming a dominant natural phenomenon. What worries many is the scourge of lightning during nor'westers. Thunderbolt has been an age-old curse to the villagers. Few summers, monsoons in years, in the country would pass off without lightning deaths in a village. Since nor'westers, or for that matter lightning, cannot be forecast, their potential for causing harm remains greater than that associated with other calamities. Experts continue to innovate ways, like constructing storm-proof houses, to minimise the nor'westers' impact. But little could be achieved without state patronage. Meanwhile, cities are also not fully free of the nor'wester strikes. Old trees or their branches falling on passersby cause many tragic deaths in the urban areas.

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