Teesta Erosion: Many houses, vast croplands devoured in a week
Sudden erosion by the Teesta river has taken a serious turn in four upazilas of the district, devouring at least 200 homesteads, different fruit orchards and over 500 bighas of arable land in the last one week.
According to Lalmonirhat Water Development Board and District Relief and Rehabilitation Office, the erosion is going on simultaneously at 10 points of different villages under those upazilas.
The affected villages are Sindurna, Dawabari, Uttar Sindurna of Hatibandha upazila, Bhotmari of Kaliganj upazila, Kutirpar and Balapara of Aditmari upazila and Kalmati , Khuniagachh, Rajpur and Gokunda of Sadar upazila.
Aftar Ali, one of erosion-hit residents of Dawabari village, said his homestead and four bighas of cropland had gone into the Teesta in front of his eyes a few days ago.
"Finding no way, my whole family took shelter on other's house and living there for the last four days," he said.
Another erosion victim Nabir Hossain of the village said his homestead and two bighas of arable land had gone into the river a couple of days ago and the mighty Teesta continued devouring more fresh areas.
"Over a hundred houses and several hundred bighas of croplands are also under threat of being eroded anytime," he said.
Dawabari Union Parishad (UP) Chairman Advocate Mashiur Rahman said erosion by the Teesta has taken a serious turn at several points under his union.
At least 100 houses and 200 bighas of farmland in different villages under the union had gone into the river in the last six days, the UP chairman said, adding that many erosion-hit villagers have left their houses fearing further loss and took shelters in other places.
They have urged the WDB authorities on several occasions to take necessary measures to prevent the erosion, but no step has been taken in this regard yet, he said.
If the erosion is not checked in an urgent basis, more establishments and croplands may vanish into the river in near future, he added.
Hatibandha Upazila Project Implementation Officer (PIO) Maidul Shah said they have already prepared a list of erosion-affected families.
Lalmonirhat WDB Executive Engineer Mizanur Rahman said they have been dumping sand-filled geo-bags at different points to prevent the erosion.
"We are not able to take immediate measures in all the places at the same time for not having sufficient allocation, he said.
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