Cyclone shelter in char area

ACCORDING to reports, hundreds of fishermen living in nine char areas near the Bay of Bengal remain vulnerable due to inadequate, reports say, cyclone centres. There are only three cyclone shelters in the coastal areas adjacent to the Sunderbans. Hundreds of fishermen, who earn their livelihood from the forest area and the Bay of Bengal, stay there unsafe round the year. Fishermen are still netting and drying their catches at risk of their lives.
It is amazing that though the government is spending huge amount of money every year on disaster preparedness, this area still remains unsafe for the fishermen.
Of the three, two cyclone shelters in Dublarchar and Alorkol are now abandoned while the other in Shalerchar is in a vulnerable condition, said Mahmudul Hassan, divisional forest officer of the Sunderbans' East Forest Division.
Although the government earns handsome revenue from this sector, they are least cared. We hope that the government will take immediate measure to build more cyclone shelters in the area to save the lives of these vulnerable group of people.

Basudeb Saha
Khulna