National Desk :
The Government of Bangladesh is constantly keeping itself updated about the management of natural disasters. Several national and international agencies as well as UN bodies and the international development partners including the World Bank are working closely with the government. The present government’s initiative towards ensuring a sense of safety during the natural disasters have been further manifested by the construction of school cum cyclone shelters in coastal districts where severe cyclonic storms had wrought havoc since the 70s.
Soon after the independence of Bangladesh, the attention of the government under the dynamic leadership of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was focused on the coastal people who were earlier left to the mercy of nature and the then government undertook several bold steps towards the overall disaster management including the construction of cyclone shelters and the Qillas (earthen mounds).The farsighted approach not only proved to be useful but ultimately replicated as best practices during the time of natural calamity.
Further improvement of the Disaster Shelters: After the devastating SIDR cyclone of 2007, the government initiated a project titled “Emergency 2007 Cyclone Recovery and Restoration Project”-ECRRP. A total of about 352 new schools cum cyclone shelters have been constructed while 457 cyclone shelters have been renovated. The project that began in August 2008 will end in December 2017. The three storied shelters have been designed after taking into consideration of several social, cultural and educational requirement as well as effective disaster management philosophy. These shelters have already proved to be multifarious use including imparting education in the locality ,holding of community functions like marriage ceremony, vaccination campaign, women rights campaign, income generating training activities even holding Eid congregations during inclement weather. Implemented by the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) under the Local Government Division of the Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Ministry, the project has further reposed responsibility to the LGED for undertaking yet another large scale disaster shelter project “Multipurpose Disaster Shelter Project-MDSP”. The new project that began in January 2015 will continue till December 2021.
Under the MDSP, a total of 556 new cyclone shelters will be built while 450 shelters built earlier will be renovated. Besides, 550 kilometer connecting road (maximum upto 1 kilometer for each shelter) will be constructed.
Added features of the shelters: Major attention has been given for educational facilities like airy class rooms, teachers’ room, toilet and water supply etc. The premises have also been developed in such a way that the children can play, hold daily assembly and other social activities including plantations around it.
Project Director of the MDSP Md. Abdur Rashid Khan said, during the disaster times, provision for separate room for pregnant and new born with toilet for women and store rooms have been kept while electricity through solar panel as well as rainwater harvesting are in place to ensure the basic amenities for the inmates during the emergency period.
It was observed that the people do not want to come to the shelters leaving their cattle heads at home. Now the first floor of the shelter is connected via ramp where the local people can keep their domesticated animals like cow, goat and sheep even poultry. So in a nutshell the shelters are not only shelters during disasters, these are practically educational and community centers where people not only converge at the time of need for safety and security but also an infrastructure owned by the community.
Sanitation: Unhygienic conditions rapidly develop in common facilities like cyclone shelters where a large number of people of different age groups are accommodated in small area. The Shelters built earlier do not have any toilet facility within the building. Sanitation facilities ,mostly open pit type on ground available adjacent to some 39^% existing shelters could not be used during previous cyclones rather they contributed to the pollution of surge water along with the fecal matter left for natural degradation by people practicing hygienically unacceptable traditional defecation habits. As a result, field survey indicated that only 3% of the existing shelters could maintain a reasonable good sanitary condition during the 1991 cyclone. The provision for a modern and acceptable sanitation system for new cyclone shelters capable of meeting the emergency situation during cyclone and post cyclonic periods will undoubtedly prevent fast deterioration of environmental quality in and around the cyclone shelters.
Social and environmental safeguard: Since the shelters are being built in the government school premises, no problem related to land acquisition had arisen while the site selection was completed in consultation with local level social leaders like teachers, union parishad chairman or members and engineers. Similarly the environmental safeguard was appropriately taken care of including planting of trees around the school premises. Since LGED has the experience of working with the local community, utmost care is taken to avoid inconvenience to people.
LGED’s long experience in building cyclone shelters: In fact the LGED which began its journey as an agency for rural development with a team of dedicated engineering professionals had earned confidence of the people within a very short period. As such the major infrastructural and its related socio economic development projects in rural and local government institutions are being implemented by the LGED. Since early eighties and onward LGED is involved in the disaster management in terms of building various infrastructures like roads, bridges, culverts and school cum shelters those are used for mitigation and management during natural disasters like cyclone and tidal surges.
After 1991 cyclone, several natural disasters swept through the coastal area even with higher wind speed but the loss of lives were less as more people could find refuge during the emergencies. So the cyclone shelters have been found to be useful in saving lives and now the LGED is engaged is saving the livelihood i.e. the cattle heads, a real asset of the farmers.
All these efforts have earned accolade for the LGED and the multifarious use of the shelters have proved to be a matter of pride possession of the local community. A composite model of education, women empowerment, health, social awareness and shelter during the natural disasters now being practiced in a developing country like Bangladesh, where resources are scarce, governmental sincerity has proved that welfare can be delivered at the community level if there is a strong determination and people are not left alone at the time of disaster.
The Government of Bangladesh is constantly keeping itself updated about the management of natural disasters. Several national and international agencies as well as UN bodies and the international development partners including the World Bank are working closely with the government. The present government’s initiative towards ensuring a sense of safety during the natural disasters have been further manifested by the construction of school cum cyclone shelters in coastal districts where severe cyclonic storms had wrought havoc since the 70s.
Soon after the independence of Bangladesh, the attention of the government under the dynamic leadership of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was focused on the coastal people who were earlier left to the mercy of nature and the then government undertook several bold steps towards the overall disaster management including the construction of cyclone shelters and the Qillas (earthen mounds).The farsighted approach not only proved to be useful but ultimately replicated as best practices during the time of natural calamity.
Further improvement of the Disaster Shelters: After the devastating SIDR cyclone of 2007, the government initiated a project titled “Emergency 2007 Cyclone Recovery and Restoration Project”-ECRRP. A total of about 352 new schools cum cyclone shelters have been constructed while 457 cyclone shelters have been renovated. The project that began in August 2008 will end in December 2017. The three storied shelters have been designed after taking into consideration of several social, cultural and educational requirement as well as effective disaster management philosophy. These shelters have already proved to be multifarious use including imparting education in the locality ,holding of community functions like marriage ceremony, vaccination campaign, women rights campaign, income generating training activities even holding Eid congregations during inclement weather. Implemented by the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) under the Local Government Division of the Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Ministry, the project has further reposed responsibility to the LGED for undertaking yet another large scale disaster shelter project “Multipurpose Disaster Shelter Project-MDSP”. The new project that began in January 2015 will continue till December 2021.
Under the MDSP, a total of 556 new cyclone shelters will be built while 450 shelters built earlier will be renovated. Besides, 550 kilometer connecting road (maximum upto 1 kilometer for each shelter) will be constructed.
Added features of the shelters: Major attention has been given for educational facilities like airy class rooms, teachers’ room, toilet and water supply etc. The premises have also been developed in such a way that the children can play, hold daily assembly and other social activities including plantations around it.
Project Director of the MDSP Md. Abdur Rashid Khan said, during the disaster times, provision for separate room for pregnant and new born with toilet for women and store rooms have been kept while electricity through solar panel as well as rainwater harvesting are in place to ensure the basic amenities for the inmates during the emergency period.
It was observed that the people do not want to come to the shelters leaving their cattle heads at home. Now the first floor of the shelter is connected via ramp where the local people can keep their domesticated animals like cow, goat and sheep even poultry. So in a nutshell the shelters are not only shelters during disasters, these are practically educational and community centers where people not only converge at the time of need for safety and security but also an infrastructure owned by the community.
Sanitation: Unhygienic conditions rapidly develop in common facilities like cyclone shelters where a large number of people of different age groups are accommodated in small area. The Shelters built earlier do not have any toilet facility within the building. Sanitation facilities ,mostly open pit type on ground available adjacent to some 39^% existing shelters could not be used during previous cyclones rather they contributed to the pollution of surge water along with the fecal matter left for natural degradation by people practicing hygienically unacceptable traditional defecation habits. As a result, field survey indicated that only 3% of the existing shelters could maintain a reasonable good sanitary condition during the 1991 cyclone. The provision for a modern and acceptable sanitation system for new cyclone shelters capable of meeting the emergency situation during cyclone and post cyclonic periods will undoubtedly prevent fast deterioration of environmental quality in and around the cyclone shelters.
Social and environmental safeguard: Since the shelters are being built in the government school premises, no problem related to land acquisition had arisen while the site selection was completed in consultation with local level social leaders like teachers, union parishad chairman or members and engineers. Similarly the environmental safeguard was appropriately taken care of including planting of trees around the school premises. Since LGED has the experience of working with the local community, utmost care is taken to avoid inconvenience to people.
LGED’s long experience in building cyclone shelters: In fact the LGED which began its journey as an agency for rural development with a team of dedicated engineering professionals had earned confidence of the people within a very short period. As such the major infrastructural and its related socio economic development projects in rural and local government institutions are being implemented by the LGED. Since early eighties and onward LGED is involved in the disaster management in terms of building various infrastructures like roads, bridges, culverts and school cum shelters those are used for mitigation and management during natural disasters like cyclone and tidal surges.
After 1991 cyclone, several natural disasters swept through the coastal area even with higher wind speed but the loss of lives were less as more people could find refuge during the emergencies. So the cyclone shelters have been found to be useful in saving lives and now the LGED is engaged is saving the livelihood i.e. the cattle heads, a real asset of the farmers.
All these efforts have earned accolade for the LGED and the multifarious use of the shelters have proved to be a matter of pride possession of the local community. A composite model of education, women empowerment, health, social awareness and shelter during the natural disasters now being practiced in a developing country like Bangladesh, where resources are scarce, governmental sincerity has proved that welfare can be delivered at the community level if there is a strong determination and people are not left alone at the time of disaster.
