Thousands of fallen trees find way to looters' homes
It seemed to be a tree looters' day as a section of people engaged in sawing into pieces and taking away the uprooted and broken trees beside different roads and highways in the district, shortly after Saturday night's storm battered large areas of the district.
During the storm, six people were killed, around 10 thousand houses and other structures destroyed, thousands of trees and electric polls uprooted and standing crops on vast lands flattened.
A large number of matured trees including acacia, eucalyptus and banyan trees on both sides of Dinajpur-Gobindaganj, Dinajpur–Saidpur, and Phulbari-Bogra highways and several local roads were uprooted or broken during the storm.
The roadside trees belong to Forest Department and Road and Highways Department in Dinajpur.
The number of uprooted and damaged trees would be not less than 10 thousand, said Ali Kabir, divisional forest officer in Dinajpur.
The looting of trees started soon after the storm and continued the day after, said Alexandra Hasda, an indigenous man of Bejaimor in Phulbari upazila of Dinajpur.
During a motorbike ride from Dinajpur to Birampur upazila in the district, this correspondent saw men, women and children engaged in taking away parts of the damaged trees.
Many people were seen using saws to cut uprooted and broken trees into pieces.
Later the logs were taken to their homes by vans or tractors.
Saw mills were also purchasing the logs, each maund for Tk 150.
"It gave us an opportunity for extra earning," said Aleya Begum of Hajratpur village in Chirirbandar upazila of Dinajpur.
Suruj Mia, executive engineer of Dinajpur RHD, admitted the incident of villagers' looting of uprooted trees beside different roads and highways.
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