Storm wreaks havoc on book fair

With only a few trees protecting the Suhrawardy Udyan, Wednesday night's storm wreaked havoc on the portion of the Amar Ekushey Granthamela-2015 held there.

Most stalls got soaked and decorations made of plywood were damaged.

"Once a book gets soaked, it loses smoothness and cannot be sold," said AR Hasan, salesperson of Nowroz Sahitya Sambhar, which lost books worth about Tk 5,000 in the downpour.

"About 100 of our books worth around Tk 10,000 got soaked," said AK Nasir Ahmed Selim of Kakoli Prokashani, which is set up on the Suhrawardy Udyan.   

Selim explained that rainwater trickled down through the gaps in the bamboo roof of stalls and then through the cracks in the plywood false ceiling and wet the books inside.

"Since the last time something like this happened we have repeatedly announced that books should not be left, at night, where they are displayed during the day, but should be kept inside trunks or boxes," said Jalal Ahmed, member secretary of the book fair management committee.

"Next year we will try to use tin sheets to make the roof to mitigate losses," he added.

Seventy seven books arrived at the fair yesterday and 20 were launched.