Thousands of people living in the Kobadak river basin which covers parts
of three districts in the country’s south-west continue to suffer as
their homesteads have been under water for more than four months.
The areas—parts of Tala upazila in Satkhira, and a some parts of
Keshobpur upazila in Jessore and Paikgachha upazila in Khulna—became
waterlogged from monsoon rain as the rain-water has not flushed back
into the adjacent Kobadak river which has been silted up.
In the affected areas, the Kobadak riverbed is higher than the adjacent
beels (marshy land), said sources in the upazila administration.
People living in the affected area mainly depend on agriculture, but
they have not been able to grow any crop in their fields in the past
months since they are waterlogged. There is no hope that this will
change soon.
In addition, a large number of fruit-trees on their land have already died.
Many villagers have fallen in debt to local money lenders and non-governmental organisations.
In Tala upazila alone, around 71,000 people from 21,000 families living
in 46 villages were affected with around 400 families totally displaced
by the waterlogging, according to the latest information collected by
Tala upazila administration.
According to available data, 250 houses in the upazila were totally
destroyed and 2,510 houses, 20 educational institutions, 20 religious
establishments, 10 kilometers of good quality road and 35 kilometers of
mud-made road were partialy damaged.
However, ABM Shafiqul Islam, president of Paani Committee, a civic group
organisation active in southwest for the past two decades said that the
number of affected people and the level of destruction was much higher
than the government statistics.
Shafiqul, the principal of Chuknagar College in Dumuria within the
district of Khulna, said that the waterlogging problem in the area had
been acute since the late 1990s, but that it had taken a serious turn
in the last couple of years.
The Tala upazila administration office compound, considered to be higher
than many other parts of the upazila, was still under water.
Anil Biswas, convener of Kobadak Banchao Andolon, said that though parts
of Keshobpur upazila was under water for months together, it dried up
and some of the areas are still muddy.
The affected villagers from that upazilla said that they had been facing
severe difficulties with water logging for at least the last five
years, and that most of the villagers, even the poor ones, had taken
loans to build the bases of their house using brick and cement and had
been sleeping on cots to avoid water.
‘The people of the affected areas had been coming to the hospitals with
different water borne diseases including scabies, diarrhea and
dysentery,’ Jyotirmoy Sarkar, residential medical officer of Tala
upazila health complex, told New Age.
‘This year, none came to provide us relief, though the local chairman
gave us some rice during the two Eids,’ Kamala Parveen, 45, of village
Dholbaria told New Age while she boiled some Kolmi Shak on a mud-made
oven on a wooden roof in her living room.
She said that she had collected the Shak from the nearby beel and that
her family members often had to pass days eating only boiled shak and no
rice.
Kamala showed her hands and legs which were full of scabies and she said
the health workers sometimes come to the affected areas but the
medicines they gave were inadequate and ‘being waterlogged and poor, it
was not possible to do as they say and avoid using the rotten water.’
Villagers also said that education of their children were badly affected
due to the water-logging as they could not study properly and go to
schools regularly as the small boats and floating banana-rafts were the
only means of communication.
Tapan Kumar Sadhu, headmaster of Noapara High School and also a villager
of Kalapota, said education at his school was severely affected due to
the waterlogging for months. He was worried about the result of his
students in the ongoing final examination.
In the badly affected village of Kanaidia in Tala, many families were still living in makeshift shanties on high roads.
‘The span of waterlogging period and height of logged water are
increasing every year,’ 65-year-old Shaheed Gazi of Boro Kanaidia, who
along with his 11 family members took shelter on the
Kanaidia-Patkelghata road, told New Age.
‘The height of water on my homestead was 1.5 feet in 2009, 2 feet in
2010, 5 feet in 2011 and 2012 and it is 6 to 7 feet this year,’ Shaheed
said, adding that the situation was almost the same in nearby Chhota
Kanaidia, Atghara and Nalta villages.
He said that the base of his house was still under water.
Qasem Sardar, a 62-year-old villager of Noapara, said, to his knowledge,
five of the villagers have left the village in the last few months and
at least 11 people go to Khulna city every early morning in search of
work.
Upazila Nirbahi officer Md Mahbubur Rahman, who was transferred from
Tala to Fakirhat in Khulna last week, said that the general relief
activities were going on in the affected areas and that he had sent the
latest situation report on the affected areas to his senior officers.
He admitted that many affected people had little opportunity to get work.
Mahbubur said that the administration had already begun a 40-day job
creation programme in the upazila last week from which a total of 1,396
people would be benefited.
Another official of the upazila administration, however, preferring
anonymity, said that the relief activities were too small to meet the
demand. (source)