One year after Cyclone Aila swept across the Bay of Bengal, Mubashar Hasan returns to devastated areas of Bangladesh and finds there is still work to be done.
More than 3 million Bangladeshis were affected when Cyclone Aila swept across the Bay of Bengal and ravaged its southern coast last May, killing nearly 200 people. Low-lying Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels due to climate change. And climate scientists have predicted that strong storms and cyclones could increase in intensity and frequency in future years.
Cyclone Aila saw high tides break through poorly maintained coastal embankments built in the 1960s, submerging people’s houses and livestock. The government had promised to rebuild the embankments, and donor agencies also promised to help. But many months later, I returned to the area and saw people living in extremely difficult conditions. Oxfam has been pushing for the embankments to be swiftly rebuilt, and has warned that delays are making it harder to keep helping people affected by floods in the region.
I had travelled in a small boat with a group of journalists to the village “number nine shora” in the Satkhira district of southern Bangladesh. It was as though we were entering an entirely different world.
The village, once protected by an embankment, is now under water. People are forced to live on the broken embankment in small makeshift shelters built with leaves, bamboo and wood, and without electricity or proper beds. Bed for many is the sandy embankment.
When we travelled further up the embankment, we saw people living in very precarious conditions. Oxfam has built some emergency latrines, but about 6,000 people are living here, and space to build much-needed latrines is limited.
We saw groups of men and women with young kids in rickety boats, flocking towards a pond where Oxfam had introduced pond sand filter (PSF) technology. This technology helps to significantly improve the quality of the highly contaminated surface water of the pond.
It’s the only source of fresh water in the 10km area – most of the ponds in this area are full of saline water. People have travelled here for at least an hour and half in small wooden boats for their water.
The village had lost hope. I heard some people praying to God to take them away from this world so they didn’t have to suffer any more. I broke out into a sweat – not just because of the heat, but because of the sheer reality of unreal things.
Children were wandering about without shoes or proper clothes. Men and women were forced to live under the open skies, hoping that God would look after them.
Once they had houses to live in, lands on which to cultivate crops. Now they had nothing. All their belongings were lost in the cyclone. “Pray for me please, I don’t have any belongings apart from the skin of my body,” said 55-year-old Muhammad Abdul Kader. His eyes were dull and lifeless. After hearing his words, I felt stunned. What I was seeing felt almost unreal.
I had recently returned home to Bangladesh, after spending the past three and a half years living and studying in Europe. My life in the west was so different: it was another world. I had the luxury of debating political theories with other students at Dundee University, exploring the theological interpretation of life with Sufis and spiritual figures; debating about globalisation, multiculturalism and evolution theory at the Al Maktoum Institute of Aberdeen University, playing badminton with artists, students and professors, cycling around the UK and Netherlands, attending concerts and plays, sightseeing and living a carefree life. But now, here I was standing on a broken embankment surrounded by helpless and hungry people who had lost everything.
Locals have alleged official corruption is one of the reasons so little has been done to repair the damaged embankments.
Oxfam is working with local and international partners to ensure safe water supplies and sanitation facilities for about 75,000 people living on embankments in the Khulna and Satkhira districts. But delays in rebuilding the embankment mean people here can’t properly rebuild their lives, and fear they could be badly hit by future storms.
Oxfam’s local alliances Aila Durgoto Shonghoti Mancho and Badh Punonirman Ganoshongram Komiti are supporting local people in calling for broken embankments to be quickly rebuilt. Vulnerable families who’ve already lost so much need proper protection before new storms strike in the next couple of months as the monsoon is approaching very quickly.
Where we work: Bangladesh