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Read more...Aila victims brace for more miseries
Thursday, January 7, 2010
A new disaster might befall the Aila hit area in the coastal belt if breaches in the embankments at six major points in Satkhira and Khulna are not repaired immediately, warned the Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) yesterday.
About seven lakh people in Padmapukur, Gabura and Pratapnagar unions in Satkhira and all the unions of Koyra upazila in Khulna are under threat posed by the damaged embankments, said Hossain Zillur Rahman, executive chairman of PPRC.
He was addressing the newsmen at a press briefing to share experiences of a recent visit to Aila affected areas.
Zillur, who is also a former adviser to a caretaker government, pointed out that repairs should be completed before the monsoon, otherwise fresh areas would be submerged with saline water affecting more people.
About 597km of embankment in Khulna and 292.4km in Satkhira district were severely damaged as cyclone Aila hit in May last year, which inundated about 323,454 acres of land with saline water. About 45, 000 people are still living under the open sky on the damaged embankments.
Zillur commented that the government had abandoned the Aila hit people and without proper disaster management follow-ups the impact of Aila is about to shape up into different forms of disaster.
He added scarcity of drinking water is already posing a major threat to the locals. And with the embankments still left unrepaired, the suffering is only to increase.
Another major issue ignored by the government is the devastation of educational institutions in the area. About 142 schools in Satkhira and 13 in Khulna have been fully destroyed by cyclone Aila, he said.
Zillur also said the Water Development Board, responsible for the management of the embankments, has failed to respond to the crisis.
He stressed the involvement of local people in the maintenance of embankments in merger of local knowledge with modern technologies and creating a green protection belt around the coast.
He also insisted on initiating a long-term action plan for the coastal area. The core poverty zone is shifting from the North Bengal to the South due to climate change inflicted natural disasters, he added.
Brac Development Centre Director Syed Hashemi also addressed the press briefing.
Khulna under grave risk
Climate report sees it among 15 most threatened cities in world
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The report "Climate Change and the Urban Poor: Risk and resilience in 15 of the world's most vulnerable cities" published recently by International Institute for Development and Environment termed 12 cities from Africa and three from South Asia most vulnerable to climate change.
However, the report did not rank the cities, as their problems differ. Rather it divided the cities into three categories -- coastal, highland and dry land.
Khulna is included in the report as one the most vulnerable coastal cities. The city is home to around 1.3 million people.
The report says the major concerns for Khulna are frequent and increased level of floods, storm surges, intensity of cyclones, water logging, saline intrusion, sedimentation and river erosion.
According to the report, the most vulnerable coastal cities are Khulna of Bangladesh, Maputo of Mozambique, Dar Es Salam of Tanzania, Mombassa of Kenya, and Cotonou of Benin.
The dry land cities are Nouakchott of Mauritania, Diourbel of Senegal, Bamako of Mali, Khartoum of Sudan while the highland cities are Thimphu of Bhutan, Kathmandu of Nepal, Harare of Zimbabwe, Kampala of Uganda, Lusaka of Zambia and Blantyre of Malawi.
The report says only two percent of the world's land is in the Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ) -- coastal areas less than ten metres above the average sea level.
This zone is home to ten percent of the world's population. Besides, constant urbanisation is likely to attract more people in these areas.
Of countries with the largest share of their population living in the LECZ, all but two are low or middle-income nations and are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
Low altitude of many coastal cities makes them highly vulnerable to flooding and tropical storms, says the report.
Meanwhile, Bangladeshi expatriates in Europe and members of parliament yesterday formed a human chain at Bella Centre urging to save Bangladesh.
Car lifters held in Khulna
A joint team of police and Rapid Action Battalion (Rab-6) on Monday arrested five car lifters from near KDA new market under Sonadanga police station. The arrestees are Rubel alias Shumon, Saiful, Osman Sheikh, Dabir and Alip Kumar Karmaker. The four are members of a Dhaka-based gang of car lifters, said Captain Baktiar of Rab-6. A stolen microbus was recovered from their possession. It was brought to Khulna from Dhaka after stealing it on December 30 from Jatrabari. Later on January 1, a case was filed in this connection with the Jatrabari police station. The investigation officer (IO) of the case came to Khulna on Monday morning on receipt of secret information that the alleged car lifters are hiding here. The seized microbus and the car lifters were later taken to Jatrabari at night.
Read more...BANGLADESH'S KHULNA SHIPYARD BECOMES PROFITABLE BUILDING NEW SHIPS.
KHULNA, Nov 5 Asia Pulse - Bangladesh's Khulna shipyard regained its lost glory as the potential venture turned into a successful profitable business concern through building brand-new ships of international standards besides repairing old ones. 
Located on the bank of the River Rupsa, the shipyard was established way back in 1957 with the assistance of a German firm, Stulcken Sohn. Two German and British companies had jointly run the shipbuilding yard till 1965.
After the independence, it was handed over to the state-run Bangladesh Steel and Engineering Corporation (BSEC) in 1972. But the shipyard started incurring loss after 1980.
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