Life was yet to get back to normal for many people in the areas hit by the cyclone Amphan in May last year in Khulna and Satkhira.
The grim pictures of struggle by the coastal people were found during a visit to the Amphan-hit Koyra Upazila of Khulna and Ashashuni of Satkhira in November last year.
It was found that hundreds of houses remained under water even after six months of the natural disaster that hit the areas of the country in May last year.
On that fateful night, four unions of Koyra upazila remained inundated due to the collapse of the embankment. Local people could stop inflow of saline water in three unions by repairing the embankment voluntarily. But the river erosion at Kashirhatkhola of Uttar Bedkashi union could not be stopped.
The saline water entered through 21 points of Ghatakhali in Koyra Sadar Union and Koyra 2, Hazatkhali of Uttar Bedkash, Gazipara, Kashirhatkhola, Moharajpur and South Bedkahsi. People of the areas were suffering from the high and low tide.
Koyra Upazila chairman SM Shafiqul Islam told the FE that there was a 120-kilometre embankment, of which 68 km collapsed in the cyclone Amphan. The damage could be minimised, had the fund sought for repairing the embankment soon after the cyclone be allocated by the BWDB.
They did not give the fund when local people wanted to repair it willingly using their own expertise.
It was found that some 130 families out of 1,300 in the inundated areas took shelter on the BWDB dam while many others migrated to the nearby townships.
There a few huts made of golpata constructed on the dam again after the Amphan. They collected drinking water from the tubewells which go under water. All the families were using only one toilet made of golpata.
People who left their homes after the cyclone Amphan and took shelter on the dam expressed their fear about what they would do during the winter.
Samir (15) was a student of class nine. After the Amphan, he started working as a day labourer for the embankment repairing project as he had to earn for his family.
Some people were seen still living in the houses in the inundated areas. They did not leave their homes amid fears of losing property. Some people said they did not want to live on the embankment. They did not even get relief as those were distributed on the embankment only - the distributors did not come to the inundated houses.
Rafiq Mia (50) standing on the veranda of his inundated house said that his sufferings were increasing day by day, making his life and livelihood uncertain. He was living there with his wife and two children in a single room. They could not sleep as the water level used to rise at night.
They used to wake up and stay at an elevated spot for the whole night until the water started receding.
Locals said the sufferings of women were beyond imagination as they were finding it difficult to sleep and eat properly, go to toilets. They needed to finish all their cooking before the tide.
Local volunteer and day labourer MM Saiful Islam told this correspondent that he was a student of HSC first year when the cyclone Aila hit Koyra on May 25 in 2009.
His father's agricultural land was inundated at that time. Although embankments were repaired at many points, still those were collapsing every year.
To him, the routine work of embankment damage and repair is a kind of 'game'. Some local musclemen and politicians never wanted any permanent solution to the construction of embankments in region, he alleged.
The BWDB of Satkhira district is the custodian of the dams that fall under the administration of Khulna district. According to BWDB sources, on May 25 in 2009, 60km of dams in Koyra was completely destroyed by the Aila.
Imtiaz Uddin, general secretary of Koira Unnayan Sangram Samiti, alleged that there were irregularities and lack of transparency in the repair work. He said that Tk 86 million was allocated after the Amphan for embankment repair work.
He also said that Tk 40 million was allocated in FY2018-19 and Tk 30 million in FY2019-20 for embankment renovation, but no signboard was displayed during the development work, he said.
"Although the site of the embankment is in Khulna, its maintenance is the responsibility of Satkhira BWDB. As a result, local MPs and upazila chairmen are not able to supervise the work properly."
Executive director of Change Initiative M Zakir Hossain said that the allocation to BWDB was given in political consideration and not to protect the people of coastal areas.
Around Tk 200 billion was allocated for Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) over a period of nine years against 900 projects to protect the people from the disasters and other adverse impact of climate change, official data showed.
The projects included coastal embankment protection, maintenance and repair, construction of new embankments, polders, dredging, navigation of rivers, flood control and water drainage, irrigation, eradication of waterlogging, etc.
The money was allocated from development fund as well as climate change fund for the districts of Barguna, Pirojpur, Khulna, Satkhira, Bagerhat and Jashore between FY'10 and FY'19.
Cyclonic storms like Sidr, Aila, Mahasen and Amphan severely affected the lives and livelihoods of the coastal areas in the last one and a half decades.
