"I farm when it's the season, the rest of the time I pick sand from sandpits. Now both are gone," says Harun, a young man from Kowtali village in Feni's Parshuram Upazila, near the border with India. "I can't do anything to earn a living. Allah knows how I will get by day to day."
Most of the young people in this village are facing the same fate as Harun after flash floods inundated the area.
Cultivable lands have been covered in sand, while the sand pits have been washed away.
Now, local youths see only a dark future ahead as they take up a new struggle in the aftermath of the disaster.
Parshuram Upazila executive officer Afroza Habib Shapla was also worried about local employment.
"The agriculture sector is totally destroyed. People aren't getting any work. They need immediate rehabilitation," she said.
Heavy rain and a flash floods on Aug 20, submerged all Upazilas, including the Sadar Upazila, in Feni. It was an unprecedented disaster that became a nightmare for the district's people.
People in Parshuram Upazila near the India border, said they saw increased water level in canals, lakes and rivers during the monsoon. Sometimes the low-lying areas were submerged as well. But they have never seen such a flood in the area. One that has washed away everything.
The Upazila faced the first in a series of floods on Jul 1. Then on Aug 2, a dam was breached, flooding the area again. Temporary repairs were done on the dam, but when the heavy rain and runoff came down on Aug 20, it was overcome again.
It resulted in the most severe flood in the history of Feni.
bdnews24.com spoke to Harun, identified with a single name, at Tulatali Bazar in Parshuram's Mirzanagar Union. "Come with me and I'll show you. You can't believe it unless you see it," he said when asked how bad the flood damage was.
This correspondent visited Kashinagar, North Kowtali, South Kowtali, and Champak Nagar villages with Harun. Heaps of sand had covered most of the arable land. The sand buried all the Aman paddy seedlings sown before the flood.
As we walked along the village roads, Harun pointed to many sand heaps, saying that they had been farming land only weeks ago. All the Aman seedlings were buried under the sand, he said. There can be no more farming until the sand was removed.
Harun said he earned a living by working farmland or in the sand pits. Most of the young and middle-aged men in the village did the same, he said. —bdnews24.com
