Help the flood
victims to survive
Many of the flood-hit people are unable to return home from temporary shelters as their houses were badly damaged. Stranded in waterlogged areas, many victims remain unemployed, with little access to food and drinking water, a situation compounded by insufficient relief.
But thousands of flood victims, however, remained hungry and vulnerable to diseases like diarrhoea as relief supplies were scanty to meet their needs. Inadequate government relief and crises of food and drinking water have compounded their woes. Prices of essential goods and vegetable have gone up in the affected areas as crops on vast swathes of land got damaged.
Someone did not get any relief from the government. Rather, they have alleged that many affluent families have got it due to political affiliation with the high-ups or the influential local authority. They are also facing a shortage of drinking water as most of the tube-wells in the area have gone under water. Flood is also taking a heavy toll on cattle farmers in eleven districts, mostly in Sirajganj, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Gaibandha, Natore, Bogura, Nilphamari, Sylhet, Sunamganj and Jamalpur. They are struggling to find a safe place for their domestic animals. Most of them brought those to higher places near the main roads to save those from floodwater.
Hundreds of schools remain closed, disrupting studies of thousands of children in 11 districts, which creates a big trauma in the affected student life. Not only the government, the philanthropist persons or such group should come forward to mitigate the woes of flood hit victims and this is the right time to stay beside them.
Md. Zillur Rahaman
Gandaria, Dhaka
