Hundreds of houses devoured by Meghna
Nearly 300 acres of croplands and 800 houses and shops were devoured by the river Meghna in Rajapur and Elisha unions in Sadar upazila of Bhola in the last fifteen days.
At least 40 villages in the upazila are at risk of the disaster, said locals.
Visiting some areas on Thursday and yesterday, The Daily Star found that cracks developed on the roads and land.
In last seven days, the river devoured two small villages, a mosque, the Islamic Foundation Hospital, three markets, two community clinics, Elisha Police Camp, and Taltoli Launch Terminal. Around 13 educational institutes are under threat.
The hospital was eaten up just in one day.
After the cyclone “Komen”, the Meghna became “violent” from July 25 devouring a lot of land at that time, said locals.
Although Water Development Board put nearly 50,000 sand bags on the bank of the river to protect the areas, those were washed away by high tide and heavy current, said Abdul Hekim, executive engineer of WDB.
Now they will start dumping more bags carrying 10 times sand soon, he said.
According to him, heavy current of River Meghna developed cracks in 600 meters Bhola-Laxmipur Ferryghat road last year and the authority did not took any action though they arranged several movements to aware them.
The villagers arranged a mass prayers on August 28 on the riverbank at Uttar Ramdaspur so that the almighty save the upazila from river erosion, said Mohammad Younus, acting chairman of Sadar upazila.
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