When there is no protection against biting cold

When global warming has raised the spectre of toothless winters and burning temperature in summer months, this part of the country is defying any such prediction. Indeed, Tentulia recorded the lowest ever temperature at 2.6 degree Celsius on January 8, 2018. This year the mercury may not dip as low as that but it has been 9.5C in Chuadanga. Even capital city Dhaka, a hotspot of concentrated warming, recorded 12C yesterday. Yet for inhabitants of a tropical country, these levels of cold prove too much.

When much of Bangladesh is shivering with extreme cold, Europe is literally sweltering. At least eight countries there are experiencing record high temperatures. Poland, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands, Latvia and Belarus are in the grip of unprecedented high temperature this January. In Korbielow, Poland temperature was supposed to be an average of 1.0C in January but it is 19C right now. Similarly, Javornik in the Czech Republic, the temperature recorded is 19.6C but usually it should be only 3.0C at this time. Germany also feels the heat of record temperature.

North America has witnessed a deadly winter storm that brought the first blizzard of the season. At least 250 million Americans and Canadians suffered the punishing cold. The 30-50C below normal temperature that followed the icy storm even caused deaths to more than a hundred people across the two North American countries. In this context, it is quite relevant to remember what is called 'heat dome' temperature. That means extreme weather---be it heat wave or cold wave.

Compared to such extreme weather, the South Asian region is experiencing more or less normal weather. When global warming is the main concern for environmental scientists and environmentalists, freezing temperature has not received much attention anywhere---least of all in this part of the world. The reason is understandable. There have been dire predictions of 'wet bulb' temperature and other such ominous developments as a result of rising temperature. But that cold waves can as well be deadly in a tropical country like Bangladesh is hardly anyone's concern.

Weather pundits have categorised cold waves in three different levels. To go by that definition, Chuadanga with below 10C is now in the grip of a mild cold wave, the range of which is between 8.0C and 10C. Then the moderate cold wave is between 6.0C and 8.0C and if the mercury drops to that level anywhere in the country, many people's lives will be at risk. There is perhaps no chance that the temperature will fall further below 6.0 C, when it is called the severe cold wave, and make it worse for lives and living.

Weathermen may not call the current temperature in the country other than in Chuadanga a cold wave but it is causing havoc. Particularly, the poor in villages living in shabbily fenced huts and houses and the floating people in the urban centres find the cold bone-chilling. With hardly any warm clothes and blankets or quilts to sleep under, they suffer the hostile wintry bites.

Well, welfare associations, clubs and other voluntary organisations are distributing blankets among the poor in many places but there are too many people to be covered by such benevolence. So, some of these wretched souls have to make do with whatever they can lay hand on. No wonder, some cover themselves with plastic sheets, jute bags and similar other makeshift materials to protect themselves.

In this city, the number of such people who have to spend the night on footpaths in front of Kakrail mosque, between Suhrawardy Uddyan and Ramna Park and at Kamalapur Railway Station is not insignificant but it is not as large as cannot be covered by a blanket distribution programme of an organisation. Humanity is at its worst when these suffering souls are subjected to such neglect. All these people have a tragic tale each to tell, only there is no one to listen to it.

They need shelter. Both the government and the city corporations can make an arrangement, if not permanent at least temporary, for sheltering them for the winter. But first of all, they need warm clothes and at least a blanket for surviving the wintry chill. Let there be an immediate initiative for blanket distribution for the floating people in the capital and elsewhere.