Bangladesh News

The death toll of the recent violent storm rose to 91 yesterday after six more bodies had been recovered while around 1000 fishermen and a navy commander still remain missing. A rescue team however was able to salvage the marooned navy ship.
Coast guards and relatives of the missing fishermen are still searching for them but the choppy sea is disrupting the search, an Inter-services Public Relations (ISPR) news release said.

Fishermen of Kuakata shore, who narrowly escaped death during the storm, demanded access to modern technologies in deep sea including mobile network and radio broadcasts.

Meanwhile, the met office said the land depression is still remaining stationery with no virtual movement over West Bengal and adjoining Bangladesh border area. The met office still requested to hoist the local cautionary signal number three for all. The weather might remain gloomy today, the met office said.

Bangladesh Naval Chief Rear Admiral M Hasan Ali Khan yesterday visited the spot where patrol boat BNS Shaheed Farid had run aground in the shallow water of the Pashur River near the Sundarbans.

Twelve navy ships, two ships of Coast Guard, three ships of Mongla Port Authority are now engaged in the search and rescue operation under the supervision of the navy.

Our Patuakhali correspondent reports, several hundred relatives of the missing fishermen are still waiting on Kuakata beach as no less than 200 fishermen from Kuakata remain missing.

Trawler Owners’ Association could not send any trawler to the bay to conduct a search operation for its missing trawlers and crew due to a very rough sea, Nimai chandra, secretary of the association said.

The report also adds that fishermen of Kuakata demanded that the government modernises the weather forecast and warning systems, and provide cell phone and radio networks in deep sea in order to reduce loss of life during natural calamities.

Fazlu Gazi and Nimai Chandra, president and secretary of Mohipur Fishing Trawler Owners Association announced the demands while talking to local journalists in the association’s office yesterday.

They said about 50,000 men are involved in fishing and about two lakh maunds of fish including Hilsa are netted annually in Kuakata area alone, all of which are exported but the sector is ignored by the government.

They demanded a mobile network covering 50 kilometres offshore, which would allow fishing trawlers to maintain communications with law enforcers and trawler owners as most of the piracy take place within 50 kilometres from the beach.

They also demanded radio network for the same area in order to listen to weather forecasts and warnings without interruption. Now the fishermen cannot listen to radios smoothly because of poor network in the deep sea.

They also demanded a modernised warning system as the current one is hard to understand for the fishermen. The demanded measures would enable them to reduce the number of deaths and destruction caused by such storms, they said.

Our Cox’s Bazar correspondent reports, a search team with 20 trawlers went to deep sea to search for the missing fishermen but they could only recover broken parts of some trawlers. They found those on a shoal.

According to sources nearly 500 fishermen from the district still remain untraced.

Our Chandpur correspondent reports, rainfall for four consecutive days created severe water logging inside three big irrigation project embankments including Meghna-Dhongoda irrigation project. Official sources said at least 1500 hectares of paddy, fruit and vegetable fields are inundated in the district.