Saturday | 11 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Saturday | 11 January 2025 | Epaper

Common floods, endless miseries

Published : Friday, 25 August, 2017 at 12:00 AM  Count : 842
Rana Dutta
In Bangladesh flood has become a common natural disaster, which affects thousands of the people every year in different parts of our country. In fact, geographically much of Bangladesh's land is a low-lying delta plain and so, many parts of the country regularly go under water and thus, flood has become an inevitable a part of human civilization.
Recently, Bangladesh is under the grip of devastating flood; here, flood affected people are suffering and tormenting inhumanely with the whip of its lusty clutches that destroys innumerable houses and buildings, makes thousands of people homeless, shelter less and foodless and passing their days in the amidst absolute pains and miseries.
People living in the north and north-east of the country are the worst suffers and  leading their life with great difficulties as several flood protection embankments in those districts have already been broken down. Rail communications in the affected areas have been suspended for the time being as railway lines were damaged at several points.
Supplies of daily necessaries are being disturbed, price of daily commodities are increasing by leaps and bounds and imagination of life surviving is going beyond their efforts. Inadequate government relief, crises of foods and drinking water have compounded their woes.
In addition, more than 5.7 million people have been directly affected by the floods. 3,000 educational institutions in the different flood affected areas have been closed down. Twenty seven northern and central districts have been engulfed with flood water and there is a core possibility to inundate more districts. In fact, all these are the ominous indication to the country's economic collapse.
People of Bangladesh have a bitter experience of having some devastating floods. Here, we cannot but remember about the six major floods, which were recorded in the 19th century: 1842, 1858, 1871, 1875, 1885, and 1892. On the other hand, eighteen major floods occurred in the 20th century.
But, floods in 1951, 1987, 1988 and 1998 were surpassed their previous records of human sufferings and signified for their catastrophic consequences. Here, 57,300 km of land was affected by the floods in 1987; about 82,000 km of land inundated in 1998 and over 75 per cent of the total area of the country was flooded, including half of the capital city.
In 1988, water level of the Jamuna rose to 20.62 meters, and it crossed the level last year and rose to 20.71 meters. But, this time its water level has gone up and stood at 20.78 meters. However, flood in 1998 was mostly recorded as two-thirds of the county had to remain submerged for nearly three months and the untold pangs and sufferings of the common people surpassed their limit.
A lack of vegetation, global warming, deforestation, heavy rain, erratic climate change, poor drainage system, unplanned buildings structure, poor urbanization, canals, reservoirs, other manmade structures and unwise industrial activities are some of the core factors of flood disaster in Bangladesh.

*** We need to strengthen our proven capability in some frontier organizations like the Bangladesh Metrological Department, Flood Forecasting and Warning Center, Water Development Board, Fire Service and Civil Defence and in research organizations like IWM WARPO, CEGIS, BUET and BCAS. ***

In addition, most part of the country consists of a huge flood plain and delta, snow melting from the Himalayas in late spring and summer, 70 per cent of the total area is less than 1 meter above sea level, 10 per cent of the land area is made up of Lakes and Rivers, building of dams in India, poorly maintained embankments (levees) leak and collapse and population explosion are also significant factors to leading Bangladesh towards an ultimate collapse. According to the International Farakka Committee (IFC), unsustainable river management system is liable to excessive floods and acute water scarcity faced by Bangladesh during the rainy and the dry seasons respectively. Therefore, they call for keeping the common Himalayan Rivers alive through basin wise integrated management on the basis of regional cooperation so that people of different countries living along the banks of these rivers can be benefitted from their services.
Another school of water experts' emphasis that 92 per cent of the floodwater comes from the upper catchments of the common rivers while the rest 8 per cent got generated from local rainfall and stream flows from hills. Unplanned construction of a series of dams and barrages at the upper catchments of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna are the prime reasons of drying up many small rivers in the subcontinent.
According to an immediate estimate of Save the Children in Bangladesh, half a million families and among those six lakh are children are affected by the recent flood. Here, washed out roads and damaged crops are threatening to have long term adverse effects on the country's economic growth. Moreover, Save the Children put emphasis on the children's safety as they are the most vulnerable group.
The Flood Action Plan was established by the Government of Bangladesh to develop a sustainable flood action plan. Indeed, FAP was based on several earlier studies by UNDP, a French Engineering consortium, USAID and JICA.  The FAP included 29 different components of which 11 were regional, with some pilot projects and the rest were supporting studies on issues like Flood Modelling, Flood Proofing, Flood Response, Environment, Fisheries, Socio-economic studies etc.
In this respect, Flood Action Plan (FAP) has taken an initiative to find out the causes and the nature of flood in Bangladesh and also to develop strategic guidelines, programs and projects for controlling it.
But, the main objectives of FAP are to save lives and livelihood of the flood affected people, improve agro-ecological conditions to increase crop production, enhance public facilities, commerce and industry and also to minimize potential flood damage. Therefore, FAP is to set the foundation of a long-term programme for achieving a permanent and comprehensive solution to the flood problem.
The government of our country is trying heart and soul to grappling the situation with a deft hand. But, can the government be successful in providing sufficient relief to the flood haunted people with its limited resources?
Authorities can play a pragmatic role so that unscrupulous traders do not take advantage of people's miseries. Emergency preparedness for the healthcare system has to be given emphasis especially in the rural regions. No negligence should be tolerated. Hospitals and clinics must have their medicine and other necessary supplies.
Besides rehabilitation, short-term and long-term initiatives need to be taken immediately to reduce human miseries and provide them with necessary supplies and arrange for post-flood rehabilitation.
Though Bangladesh government has restructured and established the Disaster Management Department for implementing and coordinating various forms of disaster management activities as the main organ, proper functioning does not get yet its maturity. Hence, the organization needs to be restructured and re-energized through motivational training, upgrading technologies and boasting up morally.
To make a proactive disaster management system, government should be strategic and so, many initiatives need to be taken in respect of forming institutional framework and its legal policy. Moreover, we need to strengthen our proven capability in some frontier organizations like the Bangladesh Metrological Department, Flood Forecasting and Warning Center, Water Development Board, Fire Service and Civil Defence and in research organizations like IWM WARPO, CEGIS, BUET and BCAS.
All indicator of the flood is likely to be terrible in this time which could be worst in the last four decades. Despite of having many initiatives, Bangladesh cannot ensure yet a sustainable flood action plan.  
In this regard, combating flood is not an easy one to materialize; it takes a long time to recede. Though we cannot fully commend over it, we can only minimize its detrimental effects by adopting pragmatic preventive measures.  

The write is Assistant Deputy Secretary, BKMEA





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