Sifayet Ullah

Cutter-man Sahab Uddin died after falling from a scrap ship at a shipbreaking yard in Chattogram’s Sitakunda upazila on May 29 last year.

His house collapsed in a flash in the floodwater. Mohammed Shahjahan, a 55-year-old, lost everything in his residence and took shelter in a relative’s house.

A week into the ongoing flood situation in the country, outbreaks of waterborne disease are being reported from affected districts.

The extent of devastation from the floods is becoming  visible as the waters are receding.

The first elevated expressway in Chattogram city has yet to open to traffic, even though over eight months have passed since its inauguration in November last year.

The suspension began on August 3

Mohammed Ashik, 23, who works at a mobile repairing shop in Chattogram city’s Reazuddin Bazar, was going to his workplace around 11:20am when he found himself in the line of fire as activists of Jubo League and Chhatra League were shooting at protesters yesterday.

“If my son had committed any crime, they (police) could have arrested him, but why did they shoot my boy?” said Khorsheda Begum while sitting beside her son Ziaul Hoque, 20, on his bed at the orthopedic ward of Chattogram Medical College Hospital yesterday.

Mohammed Rubel, a mason by profession, is the sole earning member of his family.

Chattogram Development Authority has taken up yet another housing project, despite struggling to complete its previous three such projects. 

The Sundari canal in Chattogram’s Hathazari upazila is facing a severe environmental crisis due to indiscriminate dumping of garbage by the municipality.

The project to construct Kalurghat-Chaktai road on the bank of Karnaphuli river in Chattogram began in July 2017 with a deadline to be completed by June 2020.

Abdul Malek, 52, was waiting at the ghat beside Kalurghat Bridge in Chattogram to board a ferry on his way back from the port city to Boalkhali upazila after visiting his doctor on Thursday.

Despite a ban in place on collecting shrimp fries, the illegal activity has been going on unabated in Sangu and Karnaphuli rivers as well as the Bay of Bengal in Chattogram in broad daylight.

Mohammed Sohel, 37, of Golichipa Para in the North Halishahar area of Chattogram city, is planning to work as a transport worker as the four-acre land he used to cultivate as a sharecropper has been turned into a truck terminal and cold storage depot.

The Bangladesh Water Development Board excavated a six-kilometre stretch of Mithachhara canal in Chattogram’s Hathazari upazila in 2019 at a cost of Tk 49.96 lakh.

The Chattogram Water Supply and Sewerage authority purchased and installed 90,000 water meters at a cost of around Tk 27 crore between 2018 and 2022 to collect bills from consumers properly.

At least 50 farmers in Chattogram’s Sitakunda upazila are struggling to protect their crops as saline water from the Bay of Bengal constantly inundated their 150 acres of cropland due to four sluice gates being non-functional for eight years.

The newly constructed walkway of Kalurghat Bridge in Chattogram is set to open to the public before Eid-ul-Azha.

Life throws its fair share of curveballs. Apart from death, there is not much one can consider as inevitable in this world.