Staff Reporter :
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is set to visit the flood-affected haor areas of Sunamganj today (Sunday) to see for herself the situation amid hopes of a full-fledged relief operation.
She would arrive in Shalla upazila headquarters at around 10.30 am. She will hold a meeting with senior officials of the upazila and then distribute relief goods among the flood-hit people.
Flashflood triggered by heavy rainfall and the onrush of waters from the upstream submerged all haors of the district, damaging huge Boro crops.
Meanwhile, the local people urged the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to take special measures to protect the haor people and arrange reconstruction of embankments in the region to save lakhs of unprotected people from natural disasters.
They also called for declaring the region as disaster zone as one-third haor people are already compelled to leave their respective villages in search of works and food.
Besides, many other affected people are also planning to leave their villages fearing work and food crisis.
The affected farmers on Saturday demanded that the Prime Minister solve the haors’ problem permanently.
Not only giving relief to the haor people, the government will have to resolve the problems by creating job opportunities, they hoped.
“We have been demanding through holding meetings, press conferences and rallies to declare our region as disaster zone. As the Prime Minister is coming, we think she will take all necessary measures to erase the sorrows of haor people declaring it a disaster zone,” said Ful Miah, Chairman, Gourang, Union Council of Sunamganj district.
Haor Advocacy Platform (HAP) in a recent report said at least 90 lakh people in haor regions have been affected by heavy flash flooding that destroyed 90 per cent of Boro paddies
The organisation pointed out that Sunamganj, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Kishoreganj, Brahmanbaria and Netrokona districts have been affected badly.
The government data show over 3.71 lakhs hectares of Boro paddy fields of these districts have already been destroyed causing a loss of about Tk 5081 crore. However, the HAP report says the losses might be double.
“It will take five years to recover the loss,” the report also said.
