Flood-hit Bangladesh plans to keep food safe in home silos

By Syful Islam

DHAKA, Aug 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - With millions of Bangladeshis hit by devastating monsoon floods in the past month, the government and aid agencies are helping them with emergency food and shelter, while working to improve protection against future disasters.

By June 2019, the government will distribute half a million "household food silos" to people in areas prone to storms and flooding, to keep their food stocks safe from water and other threats.

Bangladesh's Humanitarian Coordination Task Team - made up of government and U.N. experts, aid agencies and donors - estimates that some 3.7 million people in 19 districts have been affected by the recent floods which began in mid-July.

More than 250,000 houses are reported damaged, including nearly 17,000 houses that have been washed away completely and over 65,000 partially lost to riverbank erosion.

Around 110 deaths have been reported due to drowning, most of them minors, according to government health officials.

The water has now started receding but experts expect another bout of flooding this month as rainfall has increased upstream in India and Nepal, whose rivers flow through Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal.

Of the total number of people affected by the latest floods, around 2 million live in Jamalpur, Kurigram and Gaibandha - Bangladesh's poorest districts, where around a third of the population falls below the poverty line. These northern areas were also hit by severe flooding in September 2014.

RED CROSS APPEAL

Aid workers report that the latest floods are the most devastating of the last two to three decades.

"This flood is the worst in the last 30 years, affected people say," said Adith Shah Durjoy, disaster operations coordinator for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Bangladesh.

Some poor families also suffered in the floods two years ago, he noted.

"The self-recovery capacity of these people is destroyed by repeated floods," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

An assessment by the humanitarian team said the food security and livelihoods of people in affected areas had been dealt a serious blow by the recent floods.

There are acute food shortages in some areas, as household food stocks have been damaged and food production hampered.

People are eating only one or two meals a day, instead of three, and a lack of fodder for animals, especially cattle, means rural families face losing important assets.

The government is responding to immediate relief needs, alongside local and international aid agencies, Durjoy said.

The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society has so far distributed food to more than 27,000 people, and is using water treatment kits to provide clean drinking water to 15,000.

On Wednesday, the IFRC launched an emergency appeal for $1.7 million to support its Bangladesh arm in reaching 105,000 people with emergency assistance.

"The floods have inflicted significant damage and hardship across the country," said Mozharul Huq, secretary general of the Bangladesh Red Crescent.

"Homes have been completely destroyed, (and) there's a shortage of clean water and lack of toilets. People's livelihoods have been left in tatters."

CARE Bangladesh is distributing food and other aid to flood-affected communities in northern parts of the country. PHOTO/CARE Bangladesh

Mahbubur Rahman, emergency response and preparedness coordinator for CARE Bangladesh, said humanitarian relief had yet to reach hundreds of thousands of people.

International charity CARE is providing food and basic shelter to more than 2,500 families in Bogra and Kurigram districts, with funding from the British and U.S. governments.

Much of Bangladesh's land is a low-lying delta plain, meaning many parts of the country regularly go under water.

Monsoon floods often inundate homes and fields, causing crop losses and damaging food stocks. But natural disasters exacerbated by climate change are happening more often, according to Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies.

"In the northern districts, agriculture - particularly rice and vegetables - is damaged, alongside losing lives," he said of the current floods. "Disastrous events are hitting more frequently than before."

There can also be considerable climate variability across the country, he added. For example, in April the northeastern districts of Sunamganj and Sylhet saw flash floods, while Barind Tract in the northwest was suffering from drought.

PLASTIC POTS

Experts say major cyclones and floods are causing fewer deaths than in the past, thanks to alerts and evacuations. But vulnerable households are losing their ability to cope as growing climate stresses push them deeper into poverty.

As part of a government effort to help people manage climate risks, the "household silos" will be given to coastal and river-bank dwellers so they can keep their grain dry when waters rise.

The World Bank is providing $8.37 million to procure the silos from local company Madina Polymer Industries Ltd, under the project to modernise food storage.

Made of polypropylene copolymer food-grade plastic, the silos look like earthenware pots, and can protect grain from chemical, thermal and weather effects. They are equipped with a seal that keeps the food inside dry even if the silo remains underwater for a long time during floods.

The government will also build eight large silos that can store 535,000 tonnes of grain to respond to needs during natural disasters around the country.

(Reporting by Syful Islam; editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Bangladesh declares lightning strikes a disaster as deaths surge

By Syful Islam

DHAKA, June 22, 2016 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Bangladesh has seen a near-record number of deaths this year from a phenomenon that appears to be worsening with climate change: lightning strikes.

So far this year, 261 people have died from lightning in the country, putting the South Asian nation on track to beat last year's 265 deaths. Most lightning deaths usually occur during the warm months of March to July.

India has seen a similar surge in lightning deaths, with 93 people killed just in the past two days, officials said.

The problem has prompted Bangladesh's government to add lightning strikes to the country's list of official types of disasters, which includes floods, cyclones and storm surges, earthquakes, drought and riverbank erosion, among others.

As a result, the government now compensates lightning strike victims or their families with sums between 7,500 and 25,000 taka ($95 to $310). Through mid-May the government had paid 1.5 million taka ($18,400) in claims this year to families of 81 people who died because of lightning.

MORE HEAT, MORE RAIN

Scientists say warmer conditions associated with climate change are causing more water evaporation from the land and ocean, increasing clouds and rainfall and the potential for lightning storms.

"The months of April, May and June are the hottest in Bangladesh and the moist air quickly rises upward to meet with dry north-westerly winds to cool and form large storm clouds," Dipen Bhattacharya, a physics and astronomy professor at Moreno Valley College in California, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"Some specialists think that as the world warms up, we should expect more explosive lightning events  rather than a gradual increase," he said.

During the three-day period of May 12 to May 14, 67 people died from lightning strikes in Bangladesh. Altogether, 132 people died in May after being hit by lightning, according to the Foundation for Disaster Forum, a Dhaka-based disaster preparedness network.

Altogether, 1,476 people have died from lightning in Bangladesh since 2010, Bangladesh Meteorological Department data shows.

According to a 2014 University of Berkeley study, lightning strikes are expected to increase by 12 percent for every degree Celsius of warming, with a 50 percent rise in lightning expected by the end of the century.

According to Bangladesh's Met Office, prior to 1981, the country saw lightning strikes on average nine days each May. Since that time, the country has seen strikes an average of 12 days each May.

I

In this 2007 file photo, lightning is seen over south Mumbai before the first pre-monsoon showers. REUTERS/Arko Datta

LOSS OF TREES

Experts in Bangladesh and internationally say the rise in fatal lightning strikes may also be related to the country's population growth and to deforestation, which has led to the disappearance of many tall trees that earlier would have drawn lightning strikes.

Now fatalities often involve farmers using metal farm equipment in open fields, or people standing near metal cell phone towers or electrical power towers, experts said.

Some said they believed cell phone use also might be leading to more lightning fatalities, but other experts said that link is unlikely.

Lightning continues to kill people who take shelter under trees during electrical storms as well, they said.

Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Advanced Studies, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that it would not be wise to blame the rise in deaths directly on climate change.

But A.Q.M. Mahbub, an earth and environmental science professor at the University of Dhaka, said rising global temperatures over the last century were driving a range of changing weather phenomenon, including stronger tropical cyclones, thunderstorms, floods, droughts and heatwaves.

"The increased numbers of lightning strikes may be due to global warming but it needs further research to be confirmed," he said.

He said the United States, which once saw 200 to 300 lightning deaths a year, had managed to dramatically reduce that toll by making people aware of the risks of standing in open areas during thunderstorms.

In Bangladesh - or anywhere where storms threaten - "people should take shelter immediately in any (building) and farmers should flatten themselves to the soil when they meet any possibility of thunderstorm to avoid incidents," he said.

Bangladesh set to pursue coal-power push despite opposition

Thu, 14 Apr 2016

By Syful Islam

DHAKA, April 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The government of Bangladesh has indicated it is unlikely to abandon its push to build more coal-fired power plants despite growing opposition among local people and environmentalists.

At least four people died and many were injured at Banshkhali in Chittagong earlier this month, when police opened fire at violent protests against the construction of a 1,320-megawatt (MW) coal plant in the southeastern coastal area.

In response, the government unofficially said on April 9 that work at the $2.4 billion power plant would be suspended for 15 days, while it carries out an assessment of the plant's environmental impact, led by Bangladeshi and foreign scientists.

Dhaka plans to set up 25 coal-fired power plants by 2022, to generate 23,692 MW, in order to meet rising electricity demand. Of the total, 16 will be built by the public sector and nine by the private sector.

Environmentalists say the risks those fossil fuel plants could pose to nature and the livelihoods of local people are not being properly investigated.

Anu Muhammad, member secretary of the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports, said the Banshkhali plant does not have an approved environmental impact assessment (EIA), yet private company SS Power Ltd - a joint venture between Bangladeshi and Chinese firms - has already started work at the site.

"The site selected is located in a coastal area where climate change risk is high," he said. "Establishing such plants in coastal areas will be dangerous."

POWER-HUNGRY

Monowar Islam, secretary of the government's power division, said Bangladesh is a power-hungry country that needs huge amounts of electricity to develop.

It is highly dependent on natural gas reserves that are dwindling, he said. "We have no other options but to go for coal - the long-term solution is coal-based power plants," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Currently only 2 percent of Bangladesh's power is generated using coal.

Islam said the advanced technology now used in coal-fired plants would curb the environmental risks cited by opponents.

The Banshkhali plant has yet to get its EIA report vetted by the department of environment, but the plant already has site clearance, he noted.

The plant cannot be relocated, as the process to select the site took five years, he added.

SUNDARBANS THREAT

There is fierce opposition to another planned coal plant in Rampal, near the protected Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest. The plant is a joint project between the state-run power companies of Bangladesh and India.

India has previously tried to set up coal-fired power plants in Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, which would have used the same technology, but was forced to cancel those projects amid environmental protests.

"The government of Bangladesh is overlooking people's concerns," said Atiq Rahman, executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies.

Even the department of environment has raised questions over the EIA for the Rampal plant, conducted by the ministry of energy, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"There was no public and experts' participation in the EIA. Laws have not been followed properly in this case," Rahman said.

The government did not explore alternative sites for the Rampal plant even though environmentalists and local people have waged a long-running campaign against the possible damage it could cause to the low-lying Sundarbans, a world heritage site.

"There is administrative arrogance," Rahman said.

UNESCO officials recently visited the Sundarbans to assess the possible impact of the power plant on the flora and fauna of the mangrove forests.

In the past, when oil tankers and boats carrying fertiliser sank in the Shela River near the Sundarbans, the U.N. body expressed concern over possible harm to biodiversity.

Ainun Nishat, a respected environmentalist and professor emeritus at Brac University in Dhaka, said the department of environment had approved the EIA report for Rampal - but with many conditions attached.

"Everything should be as per the laws concerned. The government should fulfill all these conditions before setting up the plant," he said.

IMPORTANT ECOSYSTEMS

Md Khalequzzaman, professor of geology at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania, said Rampal was not the best place for a coal-fired power plant.

"There are valid concerns about the proposed plant being so close to the Sundarbans," he said by e-mail.

"No country with a commitment to preserve ecologically sensitive areas, including India, will allow such a plant on their ground, and Bangladesh should not allow it either."

Bangladesh's past record points to a risk of spills, thermal pollution and air pollution associated with power plant operations, he added.

"The Sundarbans is too important an ecosystem to fiddle or experiment with," he said.

Bangladesh needs electricity, but it should be produced in less environmentally valuable areas, and at least 25 kilometres away from forests, he added.

Khalequzzaman urged the government to look at alternative energy scenarios, and to come up with a long-term energy policy that fits with the global shift towards sustainable development.

Abu Naser Khan, chairman of the Save Environment Movement, said the Rampal plant would one day turn into "cancer" for the Sundarbans.

"The government should give importance to environmental concerns and local people's anxiety before setting up any coal-fired power plant," he added.