Trails Of Misery And Destruction

Trails Of Misery And Destruction

This year’s floods, that in August could be said to have truly arrived, must give Bangladeshis of all persuasions pause for thought. Of course, monsoon flooding to some extent is a feature to our geography that we can never quite get away from. The severity of the challenge it poses each year, is also not in our hand, being mainly a function of the amount of rainfall in the South Asian monsoon, as well as events in upper riparian India, with whom our relationship in the vital area of managing 54 transboundary rivers leaves so much to be desired.

Yet what this year’s flood will stand out for, is perhaps the sheer helplessness of the whole enterprise, in man’s fight against the elements from such a disadvantaged position. Over the years Bangladesh has developed the tools to learn to live with nature’s vagaries - everything from community-based adaptation programmes making use of homespun wisdom to more recently adapting a bit of the modern technology on offer to build up more effective warning systems and shelter sites. Our ingenious farmers have even innovated the technique of ‘floating farming’ to allow for the use of the acreage that in the past would get routinely lost to agriculture for the period of flooding.

What rankles the most, as we survey the wreckage that the waters now leave behind in the north and north-eastern districts (where the waters are expected to start receding by the time Dhaka Courier hits the stands this week), what baffles us, and what hurts, is that we always saw it coming this time. We knew it was coming, we served all the warnings. Yet when it came, our capitulation was total. Hundreds have died, millions have been left-marooned, or just homeless as the structures were washed away or destroyed, well even heavy public infrastructure like roads and bridges have been rendered useless by the impact of flood waters, whether onrushing or receding.