Editorial
After Cyclone Aila . . .
Water, cooked food and medicines are the need
THE severity of Cyclone Aila, which hit south-western Bangladesh last week, is only now beginning to come into sharper focus. The number of the dead appears to be going up and is now close to two hundred. The damage caused to homesteads and crops has been serious enough to be compared to the loss caused by Sidr in 2007. The state of things at present seems to be getting increasingly newer dimensions with every passing day. Survivors have been left without food and drinking water. A very large number of them are marooned all across the region, with relief workers unable to reach them with the help they need. Add to that the incidence of diseases, such as diarrhoea, which have been afflicting them.
Obviously, there is a huge need to take stock of conditions in the Aila-hit areas. There are all the questions which have come up regarding the ability of embankments, set up in the aftermath of Sidr, to withstand the fury of nature. It is clear, now that Aila has come and gone, that the embankments proved singularly unable to prevent the damage that has been done not only because of the weakness in their structure but also because they have not been maintained in good condition over the last few years. This fresh instance of natural disaster should now make the authorities sit up and take action so that the effects of such disasters are minimized in future. Apart from that, one wonders if prior to Aila's hitting the shores adequate warnings were served about its ferocity and speed. People in the affected areas could have been advised to move off to safer places in time. Obviously, the speed and fury with which Aila approached the coast were underestimated by those who should have been able to gauge its capacity to cause damage in good time.
The question of what must be done now to help the distressed becomes critical. The survivors, who have lost their homes and all that comes with them, are in need of cooked food. Provisions can surely be made to satisfy such a need, seeing that giving them rice and other food at this moment will be pointless since they have no cooking facilities. Together with that, a supply of drinking water is a must. In this respect, the services of union parishad members and other local personalities can be utilized. All available means of transport, particularly boats, barges, speedboats, et cetera, must be made use of on a round the clock basis to supply fresh drinking water to the victims of the disaster. At the same time, let the authorities as well as the NGOs send out whole medical teams to help the survivors cope with the diseases that have been adding to the all-round misery.
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