A burial serial he chose to forget

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Retired army corporal Sultan Mahmud was trained to accept death around him in battlefield but he never imagined he would have to bury 120 dead bodies in just 24 hours during peacetime.

He had to go through this on Friday in Number 10 Noltona Union of Barguna, the worst cyclone hit coastal district.

Now serving as chairman of Number 10 Noltona Union Parishad, Mahmud tells The Daily Star over phone last evening, “There are at least 300 people missing in our union. We fear they have been washed away in Thursday’s cyclone because we have found bodies 30 to 35km off our union.”

The cyclone severely hit the union, situated on the coast, around 7:30pm Thursday with an estimated wind speed of 220km per hour. Locals told The Daily Star over phone that tidal waves 10 to 15 feet high swept through this union.

According to Mahmud, he along with others buried 120 dead bodies near an embankment and in nearby chars. “All the dead were identified by their family members,” he said.

Representing 14 villages, the union under Barguna Sadar Upazila is situated on the estuary of Paira and Bishkhali rivers and is home to around 38,000 people. The upazila headquarters is 32km away.

The wind and the downpour picked up at around 7:00pm Thursday forcing most people to run towards shelters. Sidr hit at around 7:30pm.

“About 80 percent of all the houses in the union have been destroyed. Ten percent have been badly damaged and the rest are still standing. The standing houses belong to wealthy people, who made those with bricks,” says 41-year-old Mahmud.

Mahmud, who retired in 2001 before becoming chairman of the union, is now homeless and staying at the Wapda embankment with other homeless people since Thursday night.

“More than 20,000 people of our union are sleeping under the open sky,” he added. “Right now, our main problem is scarcity of drinking water. Besides, there is also food shortage,” he said.

Barguna Municipality Council Chairman advocate Shahjahan told The Daily Star over phone that he visited a government housing project for homeless people in Potkakhali yesterday morning.

“I met rickshaw-puller Abul Hossain there. As he and his wife with their child were trying to run to safety from the housing project during the storm, strong wind blew the 18-month-old child out of his wife’s lap into the tidal surge. They never found the child,” he said.

“I heard two similar stories where mothers lost their children right off their hands,” he added.

He had also seen two badly mutilated bodies–apparently of a mother and a child. It seemed they were killed when their heads hit hard structures when the tidal wave swept them away.

Barguna Press Club Secretary Hasan Jhantu told The Daily Star that till yesterday noon 528 dead bodies were buried in Barguna. This figure was obtained from data given by various union parishad members and the Red Crescent Society.

Shahjahan noted that death toll in Barguna town was low, compared to those in the villages. “It is because the tidal wave was four feet high in the town [located 35km from the coast],” he noted.

Shahjahan’s house is outside the town protection embankment. He said the tidal wave struck his house around 11:30pm Thursday. “Within five minutes, I saw the water level rise by four feet. All my household things were instantly damaged. This water stayed for one hour and left a two-inch thick layer of sediment,” he said.

The tidal wave crossed the protection embankment and entered the town. This water receded after 4:00am Friday, more than four and a half hours after it entered the town.

When the tidal wave struck Shahjahan’s single-storey house, he was fearing the level of water would rise further. So, he and his family members ran to a nearby two- storey house. Others in the area took similar steps.

He said Sidr blew away the roofs of 80 percent of the tin-roofed houses. The local public library was badly damaged as a large tree feel on its roof.

“I was an SSC student during the 1970’s lethal cyclone. The tidal surge of that cyclone was 30 feet high and we found dead bodies on top of trees 30 feet above the ground. Compared to that, the tidal wave of this cyclone was nothing. Yet I can say it caused more economic damage to Barguna than the 1970 cyclone did. Because the 1970 tidal wave could not enter the town like this time,” Shahjahan pointed out.

Large number of trees in the town were uprooted or broken, while the tidal wave took away kitchen utensils from single-storey homes.

All of the electric poles and the 11KV power distribution lines have been ruined. “We do not think we will get any electricity within the next one month,” he said. “We lost mobile phone communications initially. But it has been restored,” he said.

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