Living With Risks
An upshot of Cyclone Aila
Photo: Ranak Martin/Drik News
According to a 'World Risk Report-2012,' Bangladesh is considered as the top 5th risk-prone country among 173 nations for severe exposure (31.70%) to the natural hazards such as tropical cyclone, storm, flooding, and tidal surge etc. The report identifies Bangladesh as one of the top most vulnerable (63.78%) nation because of not just increasing susceptibility (43.47%) of elements at climate risk alone, but also due to a lacking of adaptive capacity (61.03%) to resist the adverse effects of climate change.
Recent studies demonstrate that 8.06 million residents in low lying coastal Bangladesh are exceedingly exposed to the vulnerability to storm surge related deluge, and this number will raise 110% with current population growth by 2050, if no adaptive measures are taken soon.
Under this circumstance, southwestern Bangladesh stands top in future exposure to tropical storm surge and 33% of its coastal area will be added to its current (35%) inundation zone.
This writing, however, presents the dynamics of disaster risk resulted from category-1, Cyclone Aila, that struck southwestern coastal Bangladesh on May 25, 2009 that killed 190, and affected over 3.9 million (with 77,000 acres of farmland destroyed or severely damaged).
Padmapukur union of Shyamnagar Thana was the top most affected region during Aila, where many residents still live with extreme risks of being affected by more natural hazards like Mohasen.
Vulnerability of any system is framed not just by the state of a susceptibility to, or extent of harm from exposure to hazard alone, but also resides in the sensitivity of that system to hazardous events, and directly affects the capacity to recover, adapt or cope with adverse effects of climate change.
People living with extreme risk
Disaster risk emerges when the hazard interacts with people's vulnerability to adverse effects of climate change. People's perception to hazard characteristics (likelihood, speed of onset, intensity, duration, consequences, etc.) signify the critical state of natural hazards, and the contribution of these characters in framing the dynamic process of vulnerability and disaster risk.
Results reveal that Aila-affected people has poor capacity to adapt with the profound consequences of disaster risk -- likewise, different kinds of vulnerability factors entail that the Padmapukur residents who were affected during Cyclone Aila still live with critical vulnerable conditions.
Different kinds of people's vulnerability to potential hazard risk are briefly illustrated here:
Economic vulnerability: Cyclone Aila not only damaged household assets but also destroyed community infrastructures that enervated adaptive capacity to deal with potential effects of climate change alone, and also fostered the sensitivity to be affected by future climate stimuli.
After the cyclone many people were left homeless, and were compelled to reside on the strand of the Kholpetua River, embankment sides, under open sky and shanties. Coastal fishing communities were badly effected as they lost all their fishing apparatuses (e.g. trawlers, boats, etc.), and had little safety equipments, and may even not receive future warnings.
Ravenous cyclone also shattered almost all for sources of income options and drastically lessened the per capita households' income.
Social vulnerability: The community perceived that the insecurity rose as more than two-thirds of affected residents were still dwelling on the river strand and through water-logs or under open spaces.
Additionally, continued erosions of coastal defenses, seldom access to endowed resources, inadequate relief, scarce livelihood options and lacking resilient houses/infrastructures also accelerated the vulnerability dynamics at a large scale.
Leaving the people jobless meant that the dissociation from workplace also resulted in a deep sense of separation, waning social togetherness, feeling helplessness and weakening mutual support among residents.
Environmental vulnerability: During the storm, coastal plantation where wildlife could build their sanctuaries, had been damaged. Consequently, it resulted to eroding top-soil fertility, reducing absorption of heat and water retention capacities of trees, disappearing wild species, flora and fauna, and also dying indigenous plant species etc.
Besides, destroying coastal vegetation also not just reduced the potential for natural protection to reduced wind velocity during cyclone alone, but also altered the coastal bio-diversity and severed the prospect of additional earning sources of the forest dependent people.
The aftermath of adverse climatic conditions is still evident in the declining the growth of plants, shrimps, fisheries, wild species, micro-organic nutrients, and in the increase of infectious diseases.
Institutional vulnerability: The affected residents had seldom access to community clinics, cyclone shelters, police stations, markets, trawler ports, water reservoirs, and electricity etc. Additionally, they explored some loopholes in emergency preparedness programmes such as inaccurate early warnings, misconception to warning message, poor risk-reduction initiatives, insufficient rescue teams, seldom preparedness knowledge and awareness raising program etc.
Simultaneously, there are also some constraints associated with cyclone shelters including insufficient accommodation, lacking sanitation, clean water, electricity, food storage facilities, and no provision of separate rooms for women and people with disabilities etc.
Besides, the shelter places were located at the farthest corner from their dwelling houses more than 4 kilometres, which often deters the residents to safe mobility during emergency.
Geographical vulnerability: The coastal Padmapukur is geographically vulnerable and very proximate to the Bay of Bengal and Sundarban that is well recognised as breeding places of tropical cyclones. The affected villages thus stand like an island enclosed by the Rivers Kholpetua and Kopotakkho, and sheer apart from the districts or upazilas.
This geographical estrangement increases the exposure to the risk of natural hazards. They are also being frequently immersed by the saline water during ebb and tide that causes the gradual corrosion of levee's bank and top-soil fertility, and decomposes green plants.
The interaction between a hazard and vulnerability therefore demonstrates that the residents of Padmapukur live with a higher level of risk, worsening by predominant factors including a lack of resources, relief dependencies, livelihood options, and declining individual income with poor adaptive capacities.
The high magnitude of disaster-induced risk presents strong evidence in support of taking rapid actions to reduce profound effects of environmental hazards through mitigating root causes and dynamic pressures resulting to vulnerability.
[This write up is an abridged version of a paper under review for publication in a scientific journal.]
THE WRITER IS ASSOCIATE COORDINATOR (RESEARCH & ADVOCACY), NODI O JIBON-II PROJECT, UNNAYAN SHAMANNAY.
E-MAIL: CHOYON.SOC@GMAIL.COM
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