Our sympathies with Indonesia's earthquake victims

We are deeply saddened to learn of the huge death toll—which has passed 840—brought about by the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The 7.5-magnitude earthquake and tsunami waves as high as six metres have left the island in utter ruins. The gravity of the situation can hardly be put into words. Around 2.4 million people have been affected by the disaster, some 600 hospitalised and more than 48,000 displaced. We, being victims of natural disasters ourselves, understand their plight and empathise with the victims.

We would like to express our deepest sympathies with all those affected. We appreciate the fact that the European Union and South Korea have offered USD 1.7 million and USD 1 million as aid, respectively. However, we hope more countries step up and contribute to relief efforts in any way they can in Indonesia's moment of crisis.

There is an important lesson in disaster preparedness to be learnt from this episode for Bangladesh. Although Bangladesh has been working hard to boost its capacity in disaster preparedness, novel threats being posed by increasing levels of urban pollution are putting urban populations at risk. Furthermore, the vulnerability to natural hazards of places in Bangladesh's coastline means all measures possible for disaster risk reduction (DRR) have to be taken. Given our extremely high population density, the effects of a full-blown natural catastrophe could be deadly if proper DRR programmes in schools, homes and municipal planning are not in place. We hope the government works to eliminate the gaps in disaster planning at the local level and ensures the involvement of the community in disaster preparedness plans.