Editor's Pick

Disaster preparedness

2 December 2007, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Zakia Meraj,On e-mail

Photo: AFP

We face Nature's wrath every year and with global warming it'll get worse - if not fulfill the dreaded theory of scientific projections of Bangladesh going under water in the next century. For more recent events, can there be any NGO or grassroots effort for people in villages to make "safe-houses" - for emergency situations like these? like on a common ground like a school or so, where an underground bunker - sort of like wartime bunkers my parents used to have in their backyard in Pakistan before liberation. The Mid-West and South US are cyclone-prone so most houses are built with basement or they have a community basement to take refuge until the twisters go away. In Bangladesh's situation there are floods as well where bunkers won't come to aid - so may be the same school's roof can be turned into a high flat platform for flood times. I know these are ideas thrown at random but not unattainable. There's so much poverty and corruption that people are not used to the idea of acting like a community in disasters - unlike the Israelis, or Jewish community in the US or the Amish in Pennsylvania - they train their people, kids, through regular drills in emergency preparedness held by synagogues, temples and in school classroom. I don't think we have any set methods or any curricular in schools of training people in Bangladesh or do we? Something similar can easily be mobilised by organisations like Grameen Bank or BRAC where they already have the network established. I don't know if mosques can play any role-- they can be very influential and just a half an hour of demo and instructions after Friday prayers can do wonders! Then again on a second thought.. those bunkers can become the village-head's personal warehouse or "go-down" and hiding place for dead bodies.. who knows.. I am sorry if I sound like I'm losing faith in my countrymen - given the fact that they have had a series of bad luck with models or leaders, unfortunately. Just an example, the other day, one of my friend's 5-year old niece was asking if I needed the Heimlich maneuver or if I am having a heart attack... when I was coughing at the dinner table from gulping water down too fast! It was funny - we all cracked up. But later I asked Emily - how did she know of those symptoms - from her school apparently and quite a bit too - such as what to do in a poisoning situation or during a bomb explosion. This absolutely adorable little girl with her big hazel eyes is getting prepared for adulthood into a world her elders made a mess of. Sadly, I can dream of a world of people living in harmony and love for each other until I turn blue in the face but I know I just have to settle with hopes that in the coming years, Emily'll still jump up and hug me- shouting "Z is here"!
***
It is shocking that our media has failed to take an active role in warning people before the cyclone struck. The amount of deployment of our naval assets and helicopters were also very slow and insufficient. There were early reports full of self congratulatory type words Like, all is well type early news, (we got the impression from the ntv, the only channel available to us), but BBC and even US-NPR , and US Public TV did a better job than Bangladeshi media. There were no reporters on site as the storm hit, best I could tell. It is understood that the present government is a mere caretaker government, and they have done a superb job so far, stopping the agitators and lawbreakers, our pretentious politicians, looters and thugs. Their hands were full. But in this matter of disaster preparedness their work has stumbled. The old blame game is bound to start. All the pundits, who had been in power before, had done very little, as we are well aware of their work. There will be unfortunately many more disasters, we are very prone to them. It does not do any good to quickly forget the lessons learned every year. As if we are surprised, again and again. We have had floods and tidal bores and cyclones since 1964 in my own memory. Then we had 1970, 1991, etc, the major coastal disasters. Why can we not prioritise, and pre-position, keep up, replenish / replace, large reservoirs of sanitary water, such as in plastic or metal containers, as can be hand carried, and dry foods as we are trying to drop from helicopters. Why can we not supply flotation devices, "life belts" and "plastic rafts" to our coastal fishermen, schools and places of worships (masjids and mandirs), agriculture offices, thana and police outposts? It is not fair to criticise this brave and very capable temporary caretaker government, to whom we are all indebted for all they are doing. They deserve our sincere and heart felt thanks, they are the best we have ever had as a truly caring government. Having said that, it is my fervent appeal to the government, to assemble an energetic group of very forward looking and "can do" group of practical citizens, with a heavy representation of the local poor and islanders from the coasts to see that a "long term stockpiling of disaster relief materials" is made and kept up to date.
M. Hasan Choudhury, M.D.Springfield, Missouri, USA

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