Asit Kumar Mukutmoni :
Disaster was, disaster is and disaster will be. Human civilization is advancing facing disaster always, both manmade and natural. The natural hazards of Bangladesh are cyclones, cyclonic water surge, tornado, flood due to heavy rainfall or rainfall in the upstream or glacier melting or breach of dam, flash flood, river erosion, sand and stone siltation on agriculture land and residence by sandy hill slide coming from upstream and within the country, hail-storm, thundering, hill slide, drought, extreme heat & cold weave, salinity and arsenic intrusion in the underground and surface water, climate change and rise of extreme event, surface warming, heavy rainfall, fog and mist, storm, River siltation, earthquake, tsunami probability, sea water rise, salinity intrusion within the country through river water, ebb tide-flow tide, water logging etc. The other related disasters are boat, launch, steamer and cargo capsize due to storm, collision, over loading, mechanical failure or unskilled driving.
Besides, there are many types of manmade disaster. Accident, road accident (Bus, Truck, Taxi, Train, Rickshaw, van, CNG, aircraft, etc),drowning, house firing, insurgency, fighting, killing, criminally damaging, terrorism, house collapse, house breaching, illogical land cut, land filling and others are claiming huge lives and property, creating a lot of unwanted problems, inconveniences every year.
The number of accidental death and turned related physically challenged people is increasing alarmingly day by day. If we remember the collapse of Rana Plasa , Nimtoli, Tajrin garments firing and so on, it will draw us to the time back to understand the horror by giving a signal to develop dutifulness and demanded preparedness in future. This situation seems more fatal and pathetic than the flood and cyclone. Because these natural hazards have forecast where people get time to take shelter or safety measures but accident comes mercilessly giving no forecast. It is not just to describe the characteristics, presence and problem facing features of these hazards in our country in this writings. Rather it can be done in future if scope comes. Here it can be said that, only proper care, preparedness, risk reduction, motivation, training, devotion and dedication to the related work, responsibility, sound technical education, obeying traffic-land cutting-piling rule or regulation, expansion of communication system, good vehicle, responsible driving etc. can open the desired window to get rid of or to minimize the loss.
South East and South West Asian countries are very prone to disaster caused by natural hazards, where (Asia and the Pacific) the population is 61% of the world and the density is the highest. Within the period of 1980-2009 the recorded disaster in the South and South West Asia numbered 1283, following 1069 in the South-East Asia having the most fatalities. For example, between 1980 -1989 and 1999-2009, (in two decades) the reported disaster events were 1690 and 3886 respectively in the world, of which 45% occurred in Asia and the Pacific.
The severely affected area is the Asia and the pacific, covers only 25% of the world GDP but suffers 42% of economic losses due to disaster, where the population is 61% of the world and the affected population is 86% of the total disaster affected population of the world. 83% percent of the global death within 2000-2008, bitterly took place in this region. In the calculation of disaster reading of the Asia & the Pacific Region, Bangladesh is located in the South & South West Sub-Region. Amongst the said Regional countries the notables are, for comparison, about the above said time tier, by the happened disaster events, as reported China-574, India-416,Philippines-349,Indonesia-312,Bangladesh-229,Russia-176,Japan-155,Australia-154,Viet Nam-152 and Iran-140.
Asia Pacific countries ranked by the reported death toll was Bangladesh-191650, Indonesia-191164, china-148419, India-141888, Myanmar-139095, Pakistan-84841, Iran-77987, Sri Lanka-36871, Philippines-32578, Russian Fedaration-31795.The number of people affected (million) due to disaster from 1980 -2009 were, china-2550, India-1501, Bangladesh-316, Philippines-109, VietNam-68, Thailand-54, Iran-42, Pakistan-30, Indonesia-18 and Cambodia-16. The reported economic damage ($ billions) ranked by countries as China-322, Japan-188, India-52, DPR Korea-46, Turkey-35, Australia-34, Iran-25, Indonesia-23, Republic of Korea-20 and Bangladesh-16 (source-The Asia Pacific Disaster report, 2010 by ESAP & ISDR).
Analysis of the disaster events & impact by Sub-Region & Country from 1980-2009, shows that the disaster events as recorded, took place in Bangladesh were 229 in number, death 191650, affected 316348 and damage was 16273($ million).These are the direct offshoot of disaster. There are a lot of indirect loses. We can draw an outline by analyzing the damages of Bangladesh with other countries. The reported events of disaster of china, India, Philippines and Indonesia were more, written above, but the number of death was less. Say, China and India’s reported disaster number were 574 And 416 respectively, which was nearly 2.5 & 1.8 times more than Bangladesh. China is app.70 & India is 24 times bigger in area, 9 & 8 times bigger in population respectively but the loss of life in the reported disaster was less. It indicates that we have to take up more steps of precautions to avoid the loss of lives. Philippines and Indonesia are the country of the cluster of islands in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. These two countries are severely prone and vulnerable to different types of disasters like earthquake, cyclone, flood & tsunami. The landed area of the two countries is much more in respect to Bangladesh. The population of Philippine is less but the population of Indonesia is more. The reported disasters in these two countries, mentioned above, were sufficiently more but still the number of death was less. This also indicates that we need to take up more pragmatic, compact and coordinated efforts/steps in the present and the future, so that we are able to curve down the loss of lives much.
This is one side of the discussion. The other arena is that the affected number was about 8 & 5 times higher in China and India respectively than Bangladesh. Here a question or query may arise that the affected list of disaster is whether prepared properly, basing on reality or superficially and abruptly. If the information is not alike to the reality then the exaggeration or the suppression will cause a chaos, a disparity in humanitarian help and restoration. The international agency will not be able to get the real picture and information for action and ventilation which will obviously cause a misleading, a variation in the gravity analysis and rendering of help. Likewise if we go for assessing the damage list of hazards, we hold the 10th position as per information above. The analysis shows that our damage calculation is only 16 billion$, where China’s 322 billion $, means twenty times higher. Likewise damages of Japan, India, DPR Korea, Turkey, Australia, Iran, Indonesia and Republic of Korea are respectively12, 3.4, 3, 2.2, 2.2, 1.5, 1.5, 1.4 times more.
We can’t comment about the reporting of disaster events and the statistics of affected, damage of the other countries. We can say, viewing the other countries reporting, that we are far behind in reporting of the disaster events for county’s calculation and bragging the International registration and attaintion. Not only this, help from the climate fund may be negligible and our claim will not be tighten in the different international forum, if we can’t prepare and project the reality picture of different types of disaster taking the various related factors in calculation. Restoration planning may not be proper, need based and the victim, stakeholder may remain dissatisfied. Hence process of poverty reduction, restoration, reempowerisation, recovery, creation of employment opportunity, SSNP for the affected, attain the MDG goal, the vision 2021 and so on will be difficult to recover timely and properly as needed which may draw our economic progress slow.
Now a day, the number of reported disaster events is increasing internationally. This relates to the population increase which is exposing more people to hazards in one side and the other side is the increase of hazards, better reporting system, improvement in the caring attitude, environmental degradation, better collection technique of data, sophisticated technological know-how etc. In case of judging the exposed population ,say for, living at Hatia, Sandip, Moheshkhali, Urirchar, kutubdia, cheradip, nijhumdip and the southern area of Bangladesh are more exposed to the cyclone, tidal bore, salinity intrusion etc. It is a fact that loss of huge life & property caused in those areas during the cyclone of 1970 and 1991.
The rise of the sea water and the possibility of earthquake are putting enormous pressure upon our present and future. Here it needs to say some words about the rise of the sea water. Globally sea level is rising mainly for three causes as, (a) Thermal expansion of warming ocean water (b) Addition of the melted water from the ice sheet of Greenland, Antarctica, glacier and ice caps (c) Increased surface runoff.
During the 20nth century per year average rise of the sea water was 1.7 mm, mean that the sea water rose 170 mm or 17 centimeter in the century. But we notice a remarkable increase in the sea water by 3.1 mm per year from 1993 to 2003 and since then the increase is app. 2.5 mm per year. Hence the total rise of sea water is 125mm app. Or 12.5 cm by 2050 which measures about 30 cm increase by 150 years (Source-protecting development gains, by ESCAP & ISDR, disaster report- 2010). Here it needs to say some words about the rise of the sea water.
Towards the sea shore the land height of our country is very close to the sea level and topography condition pronounces that the sea saline water, through river and canals, will reach up to the middle of the country in the tidal way. There is a threat of 17% land capture by sea water, this or that way, to the south of Bangladesh by 2050. The level and the flow of the underground saline water are likely to increase which may extend to new areas developing supply unavailability of soft drinking water. The increase of the global warming, population hike, weakness in the Ozone layer and more emission of carbon by the highly industrialist countries are turning the effect severe causing an unseen horror for the whole mankind.
(The writer is a Senior Bureaucrat (retd))
(To be continued)
