Devastating Flood in Chittagong

Chittagong, located in the Southern Eastern part of the country, is the port city of Bangladesh. It’s full of natural beauty that attracts people. But unfortunately like other places it is also a victim of a perilous disaster called flood. Chittagong has been suffering from heavy rainfalls due to deep convection over the North Bay and adjoining coastal areas of Bangladesh. It affects the economy, people and the surroundings.

Roads full of water makes it difficult for people to move from one place to another. People have difficulty on walking so they take CNG or rickshaws just to cover a short distance. On such situations we hardly get CNG and rickshaws and even if we get they demand for more fare.

A research on recent flood on July 1st 2012 shows that Chittagong had suffered from a terrible flood which affected 1.3 million people. Since Chittagong is adjacent to the Bay of Bengal, it is very susceptible to flood. Due to high tidal water flood affected 13 sub districts. Among them 7 of them were severely affected (Rapid Needs Assessment, 2012).

During this time districts within Chittagong like – Anwara, Bashkhali, Satkania, Maheshkhali, Cox’s Bazaar, Sadar, Lama and Ali Adam were also the victims of flood (Rapid Needs Assessment, 2012). The economic condition being inadequate, people had less chance of recovery. Due to shortage of food and because of polluted water many people were fighting with life and death. People who were extremely weak had been aggravated as a result of this perilous disaster.

Water everywhere makes it tough for general people to reach their destination. They are forced to stay at home. Moreover, whose own houses are not safe are shifted to safer places (schools and college buildings mostly). They were provided with food and clothing which came as a donation (Tran) from many who were not affected. Most of the time at least one doctor tries to be present in a flood affected region so that he/she can treat and prescribe medicines to the victims. So then also there were doctors who were treating the victims and according to that prescription beside food and clothing that needed medicines were also supplied. But unfortunately many of them could not live long and lost their life. Besides losing close people many lost the main income source like shops, factories, cattle and so on. Lives of many were changed in a moment.

In a business organization, the investor usually invests a large portion of his money, sometimes even his whole savings with the hope of making a huge profit. However, flood in a second can destroy his long anticipated dream. There are some measures that a businessman can usually take to save his organization from getting affected by the hazardous flood. That can be taking some precautions, getting trained about how to deal with the effects of flood and spread the knowledge after they are educated about the ways of prevention. Doing so, if not the entire risk, at least some of it may be reduced.

Business and communities play a major role in helping the victims of flood. BDRCS is an organization working for the flood affected people /flood victims. An international Federation of Red Crescent Societies .It is planning to launch a national appeal to mobilize funds for flood victim and is updating all the movement. It can eventually help the flood affected as well as business organization whenever they need (Information Bulletin n° 1, 2011).

We were honored to interview Ms. Saika Hazera who worked as a volunteer under a NGO team to aid the victims of flood. Last summer in monsoon the flood continued for seven weeks in Madaripur, Bangladesh in a village named Goakhali and she did two days volunteering with the medical team. According to the her people were in pathetic situation. As it is a low land area farmers were affected the most .They were out of food and money. They had to rely on the food given by the organization. They were suffering from some kinds of diseases and the medical team provided them with required medicines. Villages nearby which were not affected by flood came forward to help them with food ,cloth but not with financial aid as there was no such place from where they could buy anything. Also according to the interviewee some short time measures were taken to control the situation though she didn’t know about any long term measure.

After every flood people think to become conscious but somehow they don’t actually do so. The measures which should be taken care of are: all the rivers should be controlled by proper engineering, a large number of sluices and outlets should be made across the high roads, dams and embankment should be constructed. It may help to regulate the flow of water.

Thinking about the detriments of flood, their good effects just become insignificant to us. They cause untold damage to life and property. So we should try our best to control inundation of land and make others aware of it.