Lifebuoy for each home in coastal areas

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Maswood Alam Khan
MEASURING present grief, anguish or stupor of the Hurricane Sidr victims in coastal areas of Barisal and Khulna who are now bereft of all their belongings is not possible but by only those who underwent similar ordeals in their lifetime -- not perchance by someone who is reading about their plights in televisions or newspapers in the comforts of their cozy homes or observing their quandaries out the windowpanes of their air-conditioned vehicles.
Still, the spontaneous outpourings of sympathy, if not empathy, showed by our countrymen -- many of whom never suffered any unwarranted loss of life or property---who like caravans of pilgrims from different parts of our country were moving to far-flung areas in Patuakhali, Barguna, and Bagerhat was not visible even in the USA like in New Orleans, Louisiana where Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc in 2005.
Notwithstanding tepid warm participation by political grass roots, unlike what we observed in previous calamities in our country, individuals in general -- some in their private cars, some in buses and trucks and many in rickshaw vans -- carrying drinking water in jerry cans, 'chira & goor' ('popcorns made from rice parched in sand' and molasses) in sacks and emergency materials like candles, matchboxes, water purifying tablets, lanterns, sharis, lungis, warm clothes etc., in bundles were speeding up to southern districts to bring succor to the thirsty and the hungry who are passing their days and nights under the open sky.
We, a few of us holding more or less prestigious social statuses, carrying as volunteers only 200 packets of aid materials during our recent relief operation in Moraleganj of Bagerhat district, felt dwarfed compared to many other common people who were rushing to disaster areas hauling huge quantities of relief materials.
It has been found that the quantum of alms received by a beggar from the poorer is generally much higher than that gleaned from the richer. A poor man doesn't mind sparing 50 per cent of money he is holding in his pocket, but a rich man finds it difficult to spare even 2.0 per cent of money what his wallet is holding. A poor passerby tosses a five-taka coin onto a beggar's urn without a second thought, but a rich motorist feels hesitant to roll down his windowpane to hand a crippled beggar a one-taka coin or a two-taka mutilated note.
A poor person can have empathy for the poor; a widow who knows how life is like without a husband to repose on has compassion with another woman who has just lost her hubby; a mother can put herself in another mother's shoes and a homeless pauper enjoys whiling away his time with loafers who don't have any shelter. Our souls cry for the needy as most of us are now or were once disadvantaged; otherwise we remain stoically reserved.
Our people, mostly fishermen and their families in coastal areas of Barisal, Khulna and Chittagong, have for ages been eking out their livings by netting and angling sea fish as their only means of subsistence since the Mesolithic period. They sail their boats and trawlers far away from seashores, dive low and deep into nooks and crannies of seas, brave squalls and storms -- they simply bet their life for millions of us to meet our dietary needs. But, we distance ourselves from them as they are deemed a class belonging to the lowest rung in our society.
People in most of the developed countries take great pride in identifying themselves with their ancestors who were fishermen while our lineage to fishermen is reckoned as a crying shame. Pope, who is claimed as a successor of Saint Peter who was a fisherman by trade, still wears in his finger Piscatorial, the Ring of the Fishermen, as part of his regalia. Fishermen are honored everywhere else in the world except perhaps only in our Indian subcontinent.
Our fishermen don't demand for their relaxations resorts, bars and bordellos on seashores akin to those in western countries where seamen after spending weeks and months in deep seas unwind with a lot of drinks and dances for a break to regenerate themselves for their next voyages to seas. Our fishermen's only wish during such a break is to find in their own homes their parents, wives and wards safe, well-fed and hearty.
Gone are thousands of homes of fishermen and cultivators of Barisal and Khulna divisions with the wind of Cyclone Sidr that visited upon them on the last November 15, at a velocity of 140 kilometers an hour. Thousands of lives of humans, animals and plants have literally been washed away by the midnight visitor that bulldozed her way through the dense mangroves of the Sundarbans to Patuakhali, Barguna, Bagerhat, Satkhira, Khulna and other southern districts leaving in her wake a trail of destruction.
We have witnessed a variety of natural ferocity on the shores of our Bay of Bengal. We as a brigade of humans, animals and plants---collectively our valiant coastguards---have for ages been fighting with those visitors in the forms of tidal bores, cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes mostly emanating from the Indian Ocean.
The Sidr onslaught on our coastal belts would not have killed so many of our fishermen and their families if they paid a little heed to repeated warnings against the impending cyclone announced continuously for two days over radios, televisions, megaphones and loudhailers before the tragedy struck. The government agencies tried their level best to convince people of the danger and in some instances even forcibly evacuated vulnerable people from their rickety homes to place them in cyclone shelters.
Those of us who are busy lecturing about what the government had to do and did not do before and after the Sidr episode should realise that our government with a poor economy cannot go beyond a certain point and that it has always been people who helped themselves surmount their crises. Based on suggestions sounded by members of think tanks and disaster experts we should now sit together to think up a method that may thwart future cyclones from wrecking repeated havoc to our coastal populations.
It is agreed by all and sundry that there should be more cyclone shelters at shorter distances so that vulnerable people---who are loath to leave behind their belongings for long---can jump onto those sanctums minutes before the demon bounding from the Indian Ocean knocks at their doors. With population booming the difference between the optimum number of such shelter houses and the number of shelter-seekers will go on widening no matter how close the shelters are available unless and until each and every home in the whole coastal belt becomes individual cyclone shelter. Easier said than done!
Yes, neither our poor people nor our government nor all the donor countries combined together can ensure such cyclone-proof houses for each and every family of the disaster-prone areas. But, the nature can---if we look a bit minutely how living beings weather whims and caprices of natural calamities.
There were of course birds, snakes, fish and monkeys in our forests who survived the onslaught of the latest Sidr though there was no cyclone shelter especially fabricated for snakes; nor was any emergency brigade there in the Sundarbans to rush to the rescues of the monkeys. Based on genetic memory birds and animals took thousands or maybe millions of years, according to Darwin's natural selection, to slowly change their body parts with a view to adapting their defensive mechanisms with natural perils their distant ancestors had to face.
We don't need to wait for the next one million years to grow our wings to fly far away when the cyclone would be chasing us. What we need is mimic what a jute plant does for its survival. A jute plant grows at hyper speed when it senses flood water creeping in.
Every human family in coastal areas likewise may have a kind of lift that will float up and down with water climbing and plummeting and the lift must be encased inside a reinforced corridor vertically erected. The corridor should be at least 30 feet high. Sounds gorgeous indeed, but too pricey when the family in question cannot afford to build even a thatched house with mud walls!
During my recent visit to cyclone affected areas in Bagerhat neither me nor my accompanying colleagues could find a single tree---that belongs to a particular genus---either felled or uprooted by the Cyclone Sidr. The tree, according to Rabindranath Tagore, is a one-legged "Taal Gaas" (Borassusflabellifer, the Asian Palmyra tree) that peers into the sky elbowing her way through all the minor trees around!
We Bangladeshis are basically egocentric; we plant those trees with enthusiasm that yield fruits within our lifetime and we are loath to nurse a "Taal" tree which takes a long time to bear fruits. As the maxim goes, "if you plant a Palmyra tree your grandchild---not you---can eat her fruits". Hardly there is a family found in our rural areas who cares to develop groves of Palmyra trees at their backyard. A Palmyra tree so grows herself without any human nursing.
Had our ancestors developed groves of Palmyra trees in our coastal belts their grandchildren in Barguna and Moraleganj could perhaps cling on to those sturdy fan palms to brave the cyclone Sidr on November 15. Many people, as we have come to learn, survived the cyclone by clinging on to trees they found handy and many victims also died from trees falling on their bodies. Palmyra tree is perhaps the most suitable tree in coastal areas to withstand storms of high magnitude that visit upon our coasts. Weaverbirds like "Babui" build their elaborate domed nests on Palmyra palm leaves because they know the tree is too hard to be felled, however furiously a cyclone may hit the tree supporting their nests.
Though it may sound a little naïve, may I appeal to our architecture engineers to study the tensile capacity of a Palmyra tree to withstand the pressures of storms and floods that frequent us? May we imagine an individual fort-like shelter at the backyard of each family's home in our coastal areas where a dozen Palmyra trees, which usually reach a height of 30 meter, could stand erect as a circular or a rectangular fence with a lot of banana plants around?
When a Sidr announces its imminent arrival a vulnerable family may place a raft made of banana plants inside the open yard surrounded by densely grown Palmyra trees whereon the marooned family members along with lifesaving tools and other essentials may take shelter as long as the storm would be lasting. The lift---a lifebuoy---made of banana trunks may thus go up and down with flexible leashes tied onto the trunks of Palmyra trees with water level climbing and plummeting, the cyclonic wind blowing and the densely planted Palmyra trees ensconcing the raft and its boarders from being gone away with the wind. Let us take sanctuary inside a womb of nature to brave the elements.
The writer is General Manager, Bangladesh Krishi Bank. He may be reached over
maswoodalamkhan@gmail.com