Flood: What they need in plenty is aid

For five days now, hundreds of people of Kulaura’s Sharifpur are struggling to make it through on the embankments, surviving only on puffed rice and unsafe drinking water.

Their daily rations, hardly consisting of what you can call a diet, are running out and they will be in peril without relief.

Currently, about 100 families from Itarghat, Kalairchar and Chariarghat villages of Sharifpur are living on the dam of Manu River, our Moulvibazar correspondent reports.

They are held marooned, cramped with fowls and cows and goats; living amidst the flash flood that has thrown the lives of thousands astray after incessant rainfall and gush of water from upstream in India.

“No one has come to us with relief”, Bidhan Roy, a resident of Palkicherra village in Kulaura upazila alleged; adding: “If this situation prevails, our remaining supplies will soon dry out and we will starve.”

Hundreds of flood-hit people living on the embankments in Kulaura’s Sharifpur are barely surviving as they live on only puffed rice as food and unsafe water to drink. Photo: STAR

The same was echoed from Masuk Mia, 60, Royes Mia, 55, Dhonai Mia, 65, Soiful Mia, 38, Nepurun Begum, 55, Sultan Mia, 35, Suleman Mia, 40, Kotai Mia, 60, Jonab Ali, 50, Khaled Mia, 32, Jewel Mia, 38 - all from different villages in Sharifpur.

Badsha Mia, 65, a resident of same area, said he received some aid from the government, but it was highly inadequate.

“We received rations for six people. But, it hardly covers two meals.”

Freedom fighter Radhakishun Kurmi, a former UP member of Palkicherra, Kulaura, told The Daily Star that a large number of flood victims are passing days in misery.

“Those living by the Manu river are especially vulnerable.”

Harun Mia, local member of Itarghat, Kulaura, said, the amount of relief materials he received from government is very minimal and highly inadequate.

Acting food controller of Moulvibazar, Manoj Kanti Das Chowdhury, told The Daily Star: “If this situation persists, we will lose large stocks of our foodgrain. There are 1,568 metric tonnes of rice and 424 metric tonnes of wheat in these four warehouses. I am afraid the loss will be somewhere around Tk 25 million.”

Tofael Islam, deputy commissioner of Moulvibazar, said: “We allocated 723 metric tonnes of rice and Tk 9,40,000 for the flood-affected families. But it is not possible to carry the rice as most of the roads are submerged.”

In this situation of uncertainty, the Minister for Relief and Disaster Management Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury will be visiting Moulvibazar tomorrow morning.