Need to do much more
Thursday, 9 August 2007
Qazi Azad
AN AFP news item and an accompanying photograph showing an Indian villager pulling his cow along a flooded street in Muzaffarpur of Bihar, published in some Dhaka newspapers last Tuesday, have evaporated the expectation that the flood situation in this country would significantly improve soon.
The news item, datelined Guwhati in neighbouring Indian state of Assam, said the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and dozens of other rivers have burst their banks, submerging thousands of villages. It also mentioned, unrelenting monsoon rains and glacial snowmelt in the Himalayas have caused the floods. These are, no doubt, the reasons for the massive flooding of the Ganges' basin upstream. But it is excessive rain in Assam that has caused the Brahmaputra to abnormally swell and burst its banks in the Indian state.
For us in Bangladesh, the simultaneous rise in the water levels of both the Ganges and the Brahmaputra and the massive floods in their basins upstream have meant inundation of many areas of the country. As many as 38 out of 64 districts have suffered badly from the fury of the abnormal inflow of floodwaters from the upper reaches of the major common rivers. While the flood situation in the northern and northeastern districts has begun improving, it has shown no sign of a positive change in the central and central-south part of the country. An engineer of the Flood Forecasting and Warning center expressed his fear last Monday that the flood situation in those areas might take time to record improvement. His assessment appeared realistic as the accumulated floodwaters beyond the border would flow through this country and recede as and when the common rivers have discharged them in the Bay of Bengal.
Obviously, the fury of flood in this country has been more extensive than in the neighbouring co-riparian India. The fact of flood having destroyed 75 embankments so far across the country and many areas including some towns having gone under waist-deep or more water bears testimony to it.
The government, so far, opened 1412 flood shelters across the country, which have reportedly accommodated about 0.316 million affected people. Many of the distressed in the char areas of Munshiganj, Sirajganj and some other areas still remain fully exposed to the immense miseries unleashed to them by this food.
"We have to do much more than what is being done", quoted the news agency AFP the head of the Bihar chapter of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) as saying in regard to their efforts to bring succour to the affected there. In Bihar, the flood has affected 11 million people--nearly 10 per cent of its 120 million population, making local aid officials to appeal for help.
Meanwhile, the head of the caretaker government, Chief Adviser Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed, in an address to the nation has urged the people of this country to come forward as a united body to face the flood situation and gear up the relief efforts. He has also stated support of donors for strengthening the relief works would be welcome. The international response to the need for relief works is yet to be reassuringly enough. But the melting of the Himalayan ice, which released waters alongside rainwaters to cause the excessive inundation, testifies to the global warning, triggered by dangerously high-level use of fossil fuel by the industrialised and newly industrialising advanced countries, having significantly contributed to the flood.
The local public response in this country to the need for massive relief efforts has been little so far. The BRAC has reportedly committed Tk 50 million from its own fund for relief works and launched an initiative to raise another Tk 150 million from donors for this purpose. The Islamic Bank Bangladesh Limited has undertaken some relief works. But such efforts so far, as reported in the press, are not impressive enough.
If chief guests and special guests have to attend relief distribution activities, the efforts look ceremonial and less serious. It may be good for proper distribution of relief materials. But the actual relief works under such arrangements cannot be massive enough to meet the urgency of a delicate flood situation.
It would be encouraging if more and more organisations including the NGOs, which have networks across the country, involve themselves directly in the relief work to supplement the government efforts for bringing immediate succour to the distressed. The issue for consideration now is bringing relief to the flood-affected fellow citizens.
The bar on politics under the emergency should not keep the political parties indifferent to the need for strengthening relief works. The parties might consider that they are constrained to limit their efforts by the emergency. As they normally did at times of natural disasters, they may not be able to collect relief materials from door to door and ask their supporters for donations for the purpose at this time.
Usually, during all previous floods and other natural disasters they organised relief works with the involvement of party supporters in these ways. In other words, they carried on relief works mostly with others' funds and materials and placed themselves in the roles of organisers. The party leaders this time should spend from their own funds in relief works showing that they are genuinely concerned at the sufferings of the affected.
If the flood situation improves significantly by the time this article is in print, it would be good for all of us. Yet the well-to-do section of our people including the political parties will be having an obligation to help the affected compatriots in their post-flood rehabilitation. Many of the affected might have lost their stocks of food grains and other useful materials to the devastating flood. They would require help for quite some time.
The possible outbreak of virus fever and water-borne diseases in the immediate post-flood period, due to contamination of the surroundings in stagnated waters, may claim more lives than destroyed by the flood. Both the government and the NGOs should guard against it as well.
AN AFP news item and an accompanying photograph showing an Indian villager pulling his cow along a flooded street in Muzaffarpur of Bihar, published in some Dhaka newspapers last Tuesday, have evaporated the expectation that the flood situation in this country would significantly improve soon.
The news item, datelined Guwhati in neighbouring Indian state of Assam, said the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and dozens of other rivers have burst their banks, submerging thousands of villages. It also mentioned, unrelenting monsoon rains and glacial snowmelt in the Himalayas have caused the floods. These are, no doubt, the reasons for the massive flooding of the Ganges' basin upstream. But it is excessive rain in Assam that has caused the Brahmaputra to abnormally swell and burst its banks in the Indian state.
For us in Bangladesh, the simultaneous rise in the water levels of both the Ganges and the Brahmaputra and the massive floods in their basins upstream have meant inundation of many areas of the country. As many as 38 out of 64 districts have suffered badly from the fury of the abnormal inflow of floodwaters from the upper reaches of the major common rivers. While the flood situation in the northern and northeastern districts has begun improving, it has shown no sign of a positive change in the central and central-south part of the country. An engineer of the Flood Forecasting and Warning center expressed his fear last Monday that the flood situation in those areas might take time to record improvement. His assessment appeared realistic as the accumulated floodwaters beyond the border would flow through this country and recede as and when the common rivers have discharged them in the Bay of Bengal.
Obviously, the fury of flood in this country has been more extensive than in the neighbouring co-riparian India. The fact of flood having destroyed 75 embankments so far across the country and many areas including some towns having gone under waist-deep or more water bears testimony to it.
The government, so far, opened 1412 flood shelters across the country, which have reportedly accommodated about 0.316 million affected people. Many of the distressed in the char areas of Munshiganj, Sirajganj and some other areas still remain fully exposed to the immense miseries unleashed to them by this food.
"We have to do much more than what is being done", quoted the news agency AFP the head of the Bihar chapter of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) as saying in regard to their efforts to bring succour to the affected there. In Bihar, the flood has affected 11 million people--nearly 10 per cent of its 120 million population, making local aid officials to appeal for help.
Meanwhile, the head of the caretaker government, Chief Adviser Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed, in an address to the nation has urged the people of this country to come forward as a united body to face the flood situation and gear up the relief efforts. He has also stated support of donors for strengthening the relief works would be welcome. The international response to the need for relief works is yet to be reassuringly enough. But the melting of the Himalayan ice, which released waters alongside rainwaters to cause the excessive inundation, testifies to the global warning, triggered by dangerously high-level use of fossil fuel by the industrialised and newly industrialising advanced countries, having significantly contributed to the flood.
The local public response in this country to the need for massive relief efforts has been little so far. The BRAC has reportedly committed Tk 50 million from its own fund for relief works and launched an initiative to raise another Tk 150 million from donors for this purpose. The Islamic Bank Bangladesh Limited has undertaken some relief works. But such efforts so far, as reported in the press, are not impressive enough.
If chief guests and special guests have to attend relief distribution activities, the efforts look ceremonial and less serious. It may be good for proper distribution of relief materials. But the actual relief works under such arrangements cannot be massive enough to meet the urgency of a delicate flood situation.
It would be encouraging if more and more organisations including the NGOs, which have networks across the country, involve themselves directly in the relief work to supplement the government efforts for bringing immediate succour to the distressed. The issue for consideration now is bringing relief to the flood-affected fellow citizens.
The bar on politics under the emergency should not keep the political parties indifferent to the need for strengthening relief works. The parties might consider that they are constrained to limit their efforts by the emergency. As they normally did at times of natural disasters, they may not be able to collect relief materials from door to door and ask their supporters for donations for the purpose at this time.
Usually, during all previous floods and other natural disasters they organised relief works with the involvement of party supporters in these ways. In other words, they carried on relief works mostly with others' funds and materials and placed themselves in the roles of organisers. The party leaders this time should spend from their own funds in relief works showing that they are genuinely concerned at the sufferings of the affected.
If the flood situation improves significantly by the time this article is in print, it would be good for all of us. Yet the well-to-do section of our people including the political parties will be having an obligation to help the affected compatriots in their post-flood rehabilitation. Many of the affected might have lost their stocks of food grains and other useful materials to the devastating flood. They would require help for quite some time.
The possible outbreak of virus fever and water-borne diseases in the immediate post-flood period, due to contamination of the surroundings in stagnated waters, may claim more lives than destroyed by the flood. Both the government and the NGOs should guard against it as well.