Tidal surges hamper life in 6 villages
Even two months after the cyclone Amphan, some six villages in Khulna's Koyra upazila are still under three to four feet of water, preventing villagers from returning to their homes and livelihoods.
Last week, this correspondent visited some of these villages in Uttor Bedkashi union, situated about 12 kilometres from Koyra Sadar union.
The lone road that connects the two unions is totally broken, so an alternative 20km route had to be used.
Showing the water on the inundated road, Abdul Satter, a local van driver, said daily tidal surge pushes saline water through the broken parts of the embankments along the rivers.
In some places, the three to five feet tidal waves spill over the embankments that have eroded over the years to a height of just two feet.
The villages become inundated in chest-deep salt water, which gets trapped and can hardly recede before the next high tide.
Roads and homesteads are slowly eroding, as the soil loses its compactness due to the waterlogging. "This has been going on every day during high and low tide since Amphan."
"For about two months, the deluge of tidal water has ruined vegetable fields, fish enclosures and damaged fences. Many houses have collapsed," he said.
Abdul's income, too, has come down from about Tk 600 to Tk 150 per day, as he can hardly drive his van over the dilapidated, flooded road.
Besides, those villagers, who would go to Koyra Sadar frequently to sell fish, no longer do so, after losing their fish enclosures to the water, he said.
People in these six villages including Kathmarchar, Dighirpar, Gazipara, Kashirhatkhola are mostly dependent on fish farming and farm or day labour, he added.
Now most of them left home and took shelter in nearby cyclone centres, dry parts of roads or at relatives' residences.
Annotun Nesa from Kathmarchar is living with her daughter at a relative's abandoned house, after hers got washed away along with two of her goats and half of her eight fowls.
The 35-year-old woman, whose husband left 13 years ago, used to work as a farm labourer.
With the whole village submerged, Annatun is now jobless.
Moiful Begum of Dighirpar village has been living with her family of four in a makeshift shack, made of bamboo and polythene, on a higher ground that belongs to another villager.
Pointing to an inundated area, she said, "I have a house there, which gets submerged in chest-deep water at high tide. Though the water recedes a little during the ebb current, it returns in 12 hours."
Moiful said they used to live in Satkhira district's Gabura union's Moddho Beel area. But Aila washed away their house in 2009, so they moved to Koyra.
"Look at the irony; we had to leave our current home for the same reason," she said.
Though Salauddin Yusuf of the same village did not have to leave his house on higher grounds, he lost his livelihood to the double trouble of Amphan and the pandemic.
"My three fishing enclosures on 19 bighas of land, where I invested Tk 13 lakh, are now under the Kopotakkho.
"I cultivated 240 maunds of rice this year but I could not even save that because of the waterlogging," he said.
Due to the economic impact of the pandemic, Salauddin also lost his NGO job recently.
Though his house is pucca, it gets flooded during high tide.
Salauddin is always worried about his three-year-old daughter, who does not know swimming. "We try to keep her asleep most of the time during high tides."
According to the Water Development Board, at least 21 spots in about 40km of the 121km embankments that surround Koyra were broken during Amphan. Around 68 villages of four unions were flooded.
Though water slowly receded from most of the villages, some areas in Uttor Bedkashi remained waterlogged.
People of Koyra had faced a similar situation for three years after Aila completely destroyed 60km of the dams on May 25, 2009.
This time too until the embankments are repaired, there's no respite from waterlogging, locals say.
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