Bandarban floods largely out of focus

A waterlogged port city makes screaming news headlines but no less, if not more, affected and ravaged Bandarban and the outlying hilly areas have failed to draw media and government attention they ought to have. This is perhaps because people of the plain land are not habituated to constructing a flood-affected picture of the towns and localities on the hills hundreds or even thousands of feet higher than the sea level. Hills and floods are anachronistic. So they can at best visualise the havoc wreaked by landslides if there are incessant and excessive rains. And too much of rains it was.
Sea-front Chattogram City and southern areas of Chattogram district have every reason to get flooded, only more so this year because of the sea's refusal to take in the excessive flows of rain-induced river waters under the influence of El Nino. But the hills remain off limit to flooding by sea-river collaboration. Accusing fingers have rightly been pointed at the high dam constructed to protect the newly laid Chattogram-Cox's Bazar rail tracks. A segment of distorted rail tracks caused by the onrushing waters of flood in the area corroborates the view. If huge volumes of rain waters surge down the hill slopes and find no passage, they are sure to cause floods where such a phenomenon is unthinkable.
True, Nature has been behaving capriciously of late as if to warn the human race that it is no longer going to tolerate undue interference in its ecosystem. It is apparently because of this, the rich and developed countries which thought they would be safe in their ivory towers are experiencing natural ---better say manmade ---disasters at increasing frequencies. Heat waves, forest or wildfires, typhoons, floods, earth quake, eruption of volcanoes and cyclones are making their visitations one after another giving the impression that the planet is in turmoil. The death toll of the latest wildfire in Hawaii has nearly hit the 100 mark and is thought to be double the number. Right now floods, forest fires and eruption of mount Etna volcano have not only been causing immense suffering to residents in their respective areas but some are also claiming lives beyond calculations.
As a natural disaster-prone country, Bangladesh is feared to have a major share of such weird natural phenomena on top of its usual natural calamities. Fortunately, so far Bangladesh has largely been free of such out-of-the-blue phenomena. The floods in the hills perhaps largely qualify for a strange and off-beat phenomenon. Rising flood water inundated first floor of homes, making it one-off natural tragedy residents of Bandarban have ever experienced. Ruma and Thanchi, two attractive tourist spots, opened for visitors after a long gap have been cut off from the district town.
A cursory glance at the floods in Bandarban and other parts of the Chattogram Hill Tracts may give the idea of one of the numerous quirky events experienced by the peoples in many parts of the world. But delving into it may present some uneasy developments credited to a section of rapacious elements there. Mindless destruction of hills and hillocks, denudation of hill covers and forests, extraction of stones from quarries, streams and rivers together with execution of development projects in total disrespect for geomorphological diversity and the particular ecosystem of sensitive places have gone on to invite Nature's backlashes.
The presence of unwelcome Rohingya refugees in the region has only exacerbated the environment to the extent where even elephants find their corridors to and from one patch of forest to another subjected to interference. Increasing man-animal (elephants) confrontations have been taken, thanks to Rohingya camps, to their limits by blocking those corridors much the same way the gates of floodwaters have been sealed off. Apparently, the decline in habitats of flora and fauna does not immediately show the changes in environment and ecology but gradually the losses in terms of threat to and extinction of both wildlife and vegetation become evident. Mass destruction of plant species can turn a region arid leading to sparse or a lack of rains. These are a complex set of actions and reactions involving human beings and natural phenomena.
It would be foolish to think that levelling of hills and hillocks can turn a hilly region into plain lands. Even when the need is overriding for bringing hill slopes under cultivation of crops, the special characteristics of undulating contours must be respected. The same is true for construction of roads, railways and other infrastructure as part of the socio-economic development process. At no point, should the natural system of vegetation, retention and disposal of rain waters be interfered with extensively. So destruction of hills and hillocks should be stopped, human settlements in cleared forest lands prohibited, stone quarries sealed off.
Yet this will not be enough now that extensive damage has been wrought. Massive forestation on denuded hills and removal of obstructions to rushing waters in time of torrential rains may not only minimise damage and destruction but also decrease the possibility of such catastrophic visitations.

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