Imagine the ground floor of your school, flooded with murky sea water up to your chest. Such are the conditions of the local college in Koyra in southern Bangladesh, several miles from the sea, and it will remain for the most part under water for the next two months. The school fields are submerged, only the crossbar and a little of the upright were visible on the goalposts. People were getting around the school grounds in shallow boats.
Two months ago, Koyra was hit by cyclone Aila. Although the wind speeds were not particularly fast for a cyclone, the storm hit at high tide, the embankments that hold back the sea and rivers crumbled, and the surrounding plains were flooded neck-high. Now, although the water levels are shallower, many of the villagers of Koyra have “lost everything” as one local despaired, their rice fields poisoned by the salty water, their homes shredded like paper. Most are now living in shacks constructed from bamboo, reeds and tarpaulin, raised several feet from the floor in doomed efforts to stay dry.
The older villagers, those who have lived in the area for a long time, told me they had experienced many floods, but not on this scale. The devastating effect of the cyclone was largely the result of rising sea levels, one of the results of global warming.
Walking around the village was a surreal experience to say the least. When I asked locals walking around in water up to their ankles if I could take a picture, I felt ashamed, like some kind of tragedy tourist. Here I was, capturing their struggle to show people back home, but this is their life. That’s what got to me the most - the fact that it was so inescapable. The water itself was filthy, grimy, a murky brown soup that lapped at your feet at speed. It was an all-encompassing intruder.
Floodwater has been their constant companion for two months now, and will be for another two, until the monsoon is over, water levels fall, and the government can attempt to repair the embankments and the damage. The people of Koyra wake up in the sea, sleep in the sea, eat in the sea - day-to-day life becomes even more of a struggle for people already below the poverty line. How do you make fires to cook the rice? What about sanitation - how do they go to the toilet? Clean drinking water? NGOs like Oxfam are helping considerably, but these people want and need their lives back.
I live in London. I’ve only experienced flooding once, and even then, I was on a hill, and so my house was fine. Bangladesh is flat as a piece of paper, so everyone suffers. Its geography means that a couple of inches rise in sea level has a huge impact. And the ridiculous thing about the whole situation is that its us, the big developed countries, who are responsible for the majority of the carbon emissions, who are going to take Bangladesh off the map. In the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen in December, serious headway needs to be made on targets to cut global carbon emissions - not just for our sake, but for those countries like Bangladesh that are feeling the consequences of our negligence.
Hard as I might try, I just couldn’t put myself in their position. Their lives were alien enough to me as it was, without the added aspect of water up to your waist. We heard one woman, whose husband had been killed by the cyclone, scream again and again “I want my old life back.” I don’t think her hopes will be realised.
Tags: cyclone aila
