BANGLADESH: Cyclone Leaves Millions Facing Starvation

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Farid Ahmed

DHAKA, Nov 18 2007 (IPS) - As a helicopter of Bangladesh Air Force hovered over Dublar Char, a remote island in the Bay of Bengal, hundreds of people starving for days gathered on an open space for some food and drinking water, but the helicopter failed to find any space to land on.

The impoverished people, mostly fishermen, who had lost everything in the decade’s worst tropical cyclone, fought each other as the helicopter crew air dropped packets of dry food and water on the island.

That scene was repeated over the weekend in many areas of Bangladesh’s southern coastline that took the brunt of Cyclone Sidr and the tidal wave that ripped through the country on Thursday.

“I’ve visited Southkhali of Bagerhat district on Sunday …. I’ve seen people starving for three days… I’ve seen people searching through the rubble for missing relatives… I’ve seen people buried under the debris of their houses,’’ Andrew Biraj, a photojournalist, told IPS on Sunday.

Tens of thousands of survivors were reported waiting for relief supplies amidst their wrecked homes, three days after the disaster struck.

Rescuers have already recovered thousands of bodies, suggesting that the death toll may be far higher than the government figure of 2,300 reported on Sunday morning. “The deaths may reach up to 10,000,” said Mohammad Abdur Rob, chairman of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, which is at the forefront of rescue and relief operations.

According to Red Crescent estimates more than five million people were in dire need. This is beyond the capacity of a country that is already one of the poorest in the world.

Aid workers, joined by the Bangladesh armed forces, are still struggling to clear roads to get their vehicles through to the worst-hit areas. In places elephants had to be pressed into service to clear away big trees, uprooted by 220-240 kmph strong winds.

Different countries, international agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), local organisations and the Bangladesh government have pledged relief worth millions of dollars, but only a few of the millions of victims crying for food, water and medicine could be reached.

The cyclone that roared in on Thursday evening rom the Bay of Bengal devastated the southern coastal districts, killing thousands of people, flattening tens of thousands of houses and uprooting large trees.

“Nearly three million people were vulnerable to the cyclone in the coastal districts and we could evacuate only half of them… we hope the rest of the people are safe,” said food and disaster management secretary Mohammad Ayub Mia at a press conference in Dhaka, Friday evening.

Almost the entire country was plunged into darkness as the national grid of electricity lines collapsed under the force of the cyclone, with supply only partially restored by Sunday.

The suspension of power added to the shortages of water, fuel and gas supplies across the country. In most of the affected areas, telephone lines were down and roads blocked with big trees.

Mushtaque Chowdhury, deputy executive director of BRAC, one of the largest NGOs, told IPS that although initially there was a lack of coordination, there has been some success in reaching people in the remote areas.

Chowdhury, also dean of the school of public health at BRAC University, said the country now faced a major food crisis as the cyclone was preceded by massive floods and the two disasters had effectively wiped out rice crops this year.

BRAC, which initiated a million dollars worth of aid for the victims, now has plans to mobilise five million dollars for its programme. “At first, we could not estimate the real extent of damages… as our aid workers could not get to the affected areas…but we realise now that the task is huge,” Chowdhury said.

He said water crisis in the affected areas was severe because of the salinity caused by the tidal surges.

“Lack of logistics and coordination has made it difficult for rescuers and aid workers to reach the affected people,” said Claire Barrault, an official of the European Commission’s humanitarian aid department in South Asia, at a briefing in Dhaka on Sunday.

She and two other officials are now in Bangladesh as part of the rapid response mission to assess the extent of damages caused by the cyclone.

Hundreds of dead bodies were floating about in the rivers surrounding the swampy Sundarbans area on Sunday, said some of the survivors who made it to the mainland, ending a nightmare that lasted two days.

A 30-year-old fisherman Milon Mia remained floating for 30 hours in the Bay before he was rescued by fishermen on Saturday morning.

“My boat sank when I was trying to take shelter on the river inside the Sundarbans. On my way back as I was being rescued I saw hundreds of bodies floating,” he told journalists.

Another fisherman Abdur Gafur, aged about 50, rescued from Dublar Char on Saturday, said he climbed up a big tree as the island was hit by high winds and tidal waves. He latched himself onto the tree and stayed there until the storm passed. “Although I climbed up 10-12 feet, the waves still lapped at my chest… I prayed to the almighty for my protection,” he said. “I couldn’t trace four of my companions and they might have been washed away in the Bay,” he said.

Many small islands in the coastal areas in the Bay of Bengal remain totally cut off from the mainland and thousands of people were still trapped in the small islands, officials said.

Ayub Mia said on Sunday the government had relief material in stock in every district and more relief was now on its way to the affected areas, though large areas remained cut off.

Bangladesh is prone to natural disasters that leave behind massive trails of death and destruction with regularity. In 1970, about half a million people died when a cyclone hit the country, while an estimated 138,000 people died as a result of a cyclonic tidal wave in 1991.