Struggle on in haors
As the government's efforts to determine the cause of deaths of a huge number of fish, ducks and other aquatics in the haor region continue, the affected people's fight to survive the worst flashflood in recent history is far from over.
With the last remaining haor embankment in Sunamganj's Tahirpur upazila also giving way yesterday, gushing water started entering many villages there and affected the livelihoods in the northeastern backswamp seriously.
Locals' best possible attempts to save the embankment along the Shanir Haor in Sunamganj went in vain due to excessive rain and the onrush of upstream hill water.
As the embankment was damaged at three points, water from the waterbody began entering the villages through Lalurguala, Ahammak Khali and Radhapurin areas.
“Around 5,000 villagers, including women, tried in vain to keep Shanir Haor from being inundated. The embankment of sacks of sand and bamboo gave way to floodwater,” said Borhanuddin, general secretary of Shanir Haor Unnayan Committee.
Birendra Das, a farmer of Harinakandi village in Tahirpur, said, "I thought I would be able to save crops on five acres of land in Shanir Haor. The paddy on my other land already went under water. This was my last hope."
The grieving farmer added that he did not know how he would be able to feed his three children and parents without any harvest.
There are 22 haors, including Shanir Haor, in Tahirpur.
According to Water Development Board of Tahirpur, Boro paddy has been cultivated on around 22,000 acres of land in Shanir Haor.
An unusually early flashflood struck as early as late March in entire haor region of Bangladesh's northeast and damaged Boro crops in 1.8 lakh hectares of land in Sunamganj, Netrakona, Moulvibazar and some other adjoining districts.
Conservative estimates put the loss of rice at half a million tonnes.
According to statistics disclosed by the government yesterday, around 1,276 tonnes of fish and 3,844 ducks died in the haors where the level of dissolved oxygen dropped.
BAEC'S TEST RESULTS
Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC) is expecting to get its test results today on possible causes of deaths of fish, ducks and other aquatics.
A 10-member team of experts from the BAEC that collected samples of water, soil, dead fish and ducks, and water hyacinth from five haors and a river in Sunamganj returned to the capital yesterday.
"We will be testing, among other things, presence of radioactive materials in the samples at our Atomic Energy Centre in Dhaka and hope to get the results by tomorrow [Monday]," the BAEC team led by its member (Physical Science) Dilip Kumar Saha told The Daily Star yesterday.
Dilip added that in one of the five haors -- Dekhar Haor -- he measured water with a hand-held radiation survey metre and found the water's radiation within permissible level.
He said the test was not complete and results on all samples from the lab tests had to be in hand before drawing any conclusion.
The samples were collected from Tanguar, Dekhar, Matian, Karchar and Halir haors and also from the Surma river -- all in Sunamganj.
PRESS BRIEFING
Addressing a press briefing in the capital yesterday, Water Resources Minister Anisul Islam Mahmud told journalists that necessary initiatives, including communication with India, would be taken if it was found there are radioactive materials in the water.
A BAEC team was working on it, and it would be known only after the test, he said, declining to comment any further.
The issue of water contamination from a possible source of uranium came to the fore following recent public outcry across the border on exposed uranium pits in India, which are close to Sunamganj, allegedly causing death of fish in Meghalaya's Ranikor river.
Our correspondents from Sylhet and Moulvibazar contributed to this report.
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