Flood victims in crises of food, water, medical services

With thousands still unable to return home from flood shelters in central Bangladesh, major rivers such as the Brahmaputra, Jamuna and Padma and their tributaries swelled again in the 24 hours until 9:00am on Saturday, exactly 50 days after the ongoing summer flood began.

Thousands others have still remained stranded in parts of northern Bangladesh though flood water receded there after more than a month but rivers continued to flow very close to their flood levels with dozens of breaches in embankments. 

Crises such as lack of  food, drinking water and sanitation accompanied flood victims to their houses where flood water receded enough to let them return home only to discover that everything around lay in ruins or buried under thick layers of mud.

‘Now everyone is drinking directly from rivers and defecating in the open,’ said Ansar Ali, chairman, Balapara union parishad, Kaunia, Rangpur.

Many of the flood victims cannot remember the last time they had a decent meal and a good night’s sleep and they are far from ready to tackle any further illness, especially due to lack of treatment,  reported the New Age correspondent in Lalmonirhat.

Treatment, he said, is not available there partly because they live in hard-to-reach areas and partly because of physicians’ reluctance to attend to patients amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

People in many flood-affected areas complained about not seeing a physician ever since the flood began though the health authority continued to claim there were 2,785 medical teams working in the field.

Inadequate medical services are making it difficult to properly assess flood-induced health problems but there is evidence that many people are falling sick due to flood-related causes.

The health emergency control room’s latest report showed that nearly 47,000 people suffered water-borne diseases or flood-related causes have exacerbated their pre-existing illnesses since June 30.

Just a month ago the number of people facing health issues due to the deluge stood at 2,214.

Non-government organisations reported far higher prevalence of flood-related illnesses.

According to NGO Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service, over 86,000 people visited different government hospitals in Rangpur division because of floodrelated causes.

The health emergency control room reported only one death from diarrhoea so far and none from pneumonia.

But the Rangpur divisional health office alone confirmed seven deaths from diarrhoea and four from pneumonia in the flood-affected areas.

More than 90 per cent people always arranged their drinking water sources on their own in rural Bangladesh but the flood contaminated all the sources.

‘We cannot afford cleaning tube wells when we don’t have a roof over our head,’ said Enamul Haque, 71, a daily wage labourer of Char Binbiniya, Rangpur.

Enamul had struggled hard to get a pit latrine with ring slabs at his home just before the flood hit the chars where three-fourths people defecated in the open.

‘Now everybody is doing it in the open,’ said Basuria, a resident of Sundarganj, Gaibandha.

The Rangpur divisional office of public health engineering said that they asked for allocation from the government to help people but it might not come before the end of September until the flood season is over.

The disaster management and relief ministry already said that they were going slow with rehabilitation because of the likelihood of fresh flooding soon.

Many of the areas in central Bangladesh, including Dhaka, remained under water though rivers in the region largely fell below their danger marks.

The flood has affected some 55 lakh people in 33 districts. The health emergency control room said that flood-related causes had killed 217 people since June 30.

A Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre bulletin showed that all the gauging stations along the Brahmaputra, Jamuna and Padma recorded swelling in the water levels in the 24 hours until Saturday morning.

The Brahmaputra and Jamuna might continue to rise through Sunday morning while the Padma might become stable by then, said the FFWC.

The Gur and Dhaleshwari still flowed above their danger marks at Manikganj and Tangail with the Dhaleswari swelling 3cm over the last 24 hours.

The Bangladesh Meteorological Department said that the receding of flood water might slow over the next three to four days under the influence of a strong low, formed over the north-west Bay.

‘The next three to four days will see a lot of rains in many parts of Bangladesh,’ meteorologist Abdul Mannan said.

He said that the sea might remain swollen under the influence of the low drastically reducing river draining.

The BMD recorded the country’s highest rainfall of 83 mm in the 24 hours until 9:00am Saturday in Sylhet.

The rain is likely to pick up gradually and spread as the low would envelop the country by today.

The BMD also advised four maritime ports to keep hoisting signal number three because of the rough sea and asked fishing boats and trawlers to move with caution.

The Met Office in its forecast for August has already predicted fresh flood at the end of the month because of heavy rains in the upstream.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net