Editorial
Rising rivers, vanishing homesteads
Long term protection measures needed
Erosion of homesteads and croplands, indeed of whole villages, by fast flowing and rising rivers continues to be a major problem in Bangladesh. It is inevitable, especially in the monsoon season, that rising rivers will threaten lives and land. But what cannot be a fait accompli is the idea that erosion by rivers will go on playing havoc with lives year after year. Measures for securing the rivers, especially through the construction of proper embankments and dykes, should have been in place long ago. That we still go for ad hoc steps to hold our rivers back from flowing further inland is a sad commentary on what governments have not done over the decades.
We have just been informed that further erosion by the river Jamuna has been halted at Hard Point of Sirajganj town. That is somewhat a matter of relief. Even so, since the middle of this month, the Jamuna has claimed 175 metres of the town protection embankment. The surprising part of the tale is that the embankment was built in 1997 with a guarantee of a hundred years. Obviously, something has gone wrong with the guarantee and with the embankment, with the result that the administration is now scrambling to arrest the onrush of waters by dumping 24,000 stone blocks and 26,000 sandbags into the river. On the other hand, local people are convinced that funds misappropriation has undermined the protection scheme.
The Jamuna apart, it is now the Teesta and Dharla rivers which have in the past week swallowed up whole homesteads in Lalmonirhat and Kurigram. With 300 families suddenly without homes, it makes sense to ask for long-term, concrete measures toward taming our rivers. When embankments have warded off erosion in places like Europe, there is little reason why we cannot see the same happening in Bangladesh.
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