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29-08-2024
DHAKA: Ekramul Haque was stunned when his uncle called him late in the afternoon of August 21 to inform him that floodwaters had inundated their ancestral home in southeastern Bangladesh’s Feni district, close to the Indian border.
At the time, Haque was about 10km (6 miles) away in the town of Mirsarai in the Chattogram district, where he lives with his wife and children.
The next day, it took 40 minutes travelling by minibus in the downpour to reach his village.
“I rushed back to my home the next morning amidst torrential rain. By the time I arrived, knee-deep water had already entered and soaked everything,” the 29-year-old recounted. “I urged my extended family to come with me to Mirsarai.”
His parents and one uncle returned to Mirsarai with him but as the heavy rain continued and reports emerged of floodwaters submerging single-storey homes in his village in Chhagalnaiya Upazila, a district subunit, Haque decided to undertake rescue missions starting on Friday morning to help other family members and residents of the village who were stranded. “I contacted a few friends from university and formed a team to help. However, I was shocked to discover that the road from Mirsarai to Chagalnaiya was entirely submerged under chest-high water, making it completely impassable on Friday,” he said.
Haque and his friends initially tried to construct a makeshift raft from felled banana trees, but it failed to float due to the currents.
They eventually managed to hire a small boat at three times the usual cost. “The current was very strong, and it took the boatman three hours to navigate us through. When we arrived, nearly all the houses were completely underwater,” Haque told media. The region where Haque grew up doesn’t always experience annual monsoon floods, unlike lower-lying parts of the country.
“I don’t recall ever seeing floodwaters rise beyond ankle-deep in my area before in monsoon. My parents mentioned that during the major flood of 1988, the water reached knee-deep. This situation was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced,” he added, speaking by phone while dropping off aid in Chhagalnaiya.
Floods in central, eastern and southeastern Bangladesh have killed 23 people and affected more than 5.7 million. About 1.24 million families across 11 districts in the country of 180 million people are stranded, cut off from the rest of the country by floodwaters due to relentless monsoon rains and overflowing rivers.
As the floodwaters gradually recede, those affected are urgently in need of food, clean water, medicines and dry clothing. The situation is especially critical in remote areas like Haque’s village, which is not close to the district town and where blocked roads have severely impeded rescue and relief efforts.
“We have been working tirelessly to deliver urgent relief to those stranded for the past few days,” Haque said on Tuesday. “Yesterday, we reached a village where people had been without food for 72 hours. Many were severely ill with diarrhoea and lacked clean drinking water. It was an unprecedented crisis.”
Bangladesh, located on the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta, which is the world’s largest, has a deep connection with water. Its landscape, characterised by rivers and floodplains, is accustomed to annual monsoon floods, particularly in the low-lying northeastern districts. Residents in these areas are familiar with this cycle and prepare by taking their valuables to relatives in areas that are not flood-prone and stocking up on food and water before the heavy rains and flooding that occur each monsoon season. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
