The growing intensity of this year’s flood caught us off-guard and gushing water from hills across Indian border also to be much more blamed for the catastrophe. Several lakhs people are already marooned in Sylhet and Moulovibazar districts as major rivers are rising in the downstream raising fear of bigger flood across the country. We must have greater preparation right at this moment to face it.
Meanwhile life in the flood affected areas of the northeast has become totally paralyzed as countless villages and homes got submerged, road communication remained snapped at most place while agriculture; livestock and fisheries suffered the worst.
News report said the poor need quick relief and shelter as floodwater is submerging new areas. We draw the attention of the concerned authorities to take urgent steps to rescue flood hit people at worst affected areas and local government bodies must start providing food, drinking water and shelter to marooned people. Markedly, we have noticed how government organisations were not able to effectively stand by flood victims in the northeast in last May and landslide victims in Chittagong last month. The poor response showed poor mobilization and lack of coordination when local officials and party men misused most resources to make fortune. This is a systemic problem dominated by ruling party politics – whoever be in power and a government responsible to people can only change it.
We are afraid climate change induced natural calamities may continue to hit the nation even at a bigger scale and new thinking now must focus – both at policy level and institutional level – on how to address them. We need more roads and highways and yet they are also blocking floodwater. We must know how to use our system efficiently that will give us quick movement and at the same time not allow floodwater to stay longer. Rivers throughout the country are losing depth to cause over flooding.
Most importantly, we must have a workable disaster management plan; otherwise such repeated floods may destroy most of our socio-economic gains. The bottom-line is – we must strategize and strengthen our response system at institutional level. Moreover the quality of flood protection dams in the Haors must be ensured from the hands of corrupt officials and contractors so that they can withstand pressure and save crops.
