Hurricane Sidr: Out in the cold

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With the winter setting in, over one million people made homeless by Sidr are desperate for shelter and warm clothing in fear of their, especially the children’s, vulnerability to cold-related diseases.

Report of an infant’s death by pneumonia came from Char Nazib village in Kalapara upazila yesterday.

Water crisis also persists in a number of remote areas as reports of diarrhoeal cases kept coming from several southwest districts.

The homeless are desperately pleading for assistance to reconstruct their houses to fight off the cold.

According to the government figures, 11.69 lakh houses were damaged by the cyclone, with at least 3.58 lakh completely destroyed.

In Kalapara, three-month old Rubina died of pneumonia in Char Nazib village, said the local upazila health complex.

“How are we supposed to be living here in winter with just a piece of cloth over our heads,” said Nasima of Mirzaganj upazila. She lost everything as her house on the bank of the Payra river was destroyed in the tidal waves.

Holding her four-year-old daughter tightly in her arms, she raised her voice to a higher pitch: “How am I going to protect her from the cold winter?”

They have no warm clothes left for her daughter Meem, who was suffering from fever.

The piece of cloth she was referring to was a tent donated by Saudi Arabia and distributed in the area on November 20, five days after the cyclone.

But the tents are being distributed in apparently visible areas or places visited by high-profile government officials.

Char Khali has already been visited by Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, Health Adviser Maj Gen (retd) Matiur Rahman, and Local Government Adviser Anwarul Iqbal.

In Titkata under sadar upazila, an equally devastated area eight kilometres south of Char Khali, people are still living in the open sky and no tent is in sight.

Sheuly, who lost her husband to the tidal waves, told The Daily Star, “I have no extra clothes apart from the one I am in. They’ve given us some relief but those are all light clothes. How can we face the winter with these?”

Her child could not express its fear but looked more vulnerable even in the mother’s lap.

As the sun set, gusts of wind coming from in the river rattled the bones and the thin layers of clothing on most of Titkata’s homeless barely kept the cold out.

The scale of the problem is massive. In Golachipa upazila alone there are 1.5 lakh people still living without a roof over their heads.

Rows of makeshift ‘tents’ have been raised with whatever pieces of cloth or rags these people could find.

Asked what they like most for relief, Anwar, a middle-aged man who was living in one of these ‘tents’, said, “I just want someone, the government, NGO, whoever it is… help me rebuild my house.”

The Daily Star team found at least three diarrhoeal deaths in Kalapara upazila, while there are still places facing drinking water crisis.

Acute drinking water shortage was seen in Hajikhali, Shaatharia and Ranipur villages in Mirzaganj upazila. There are reports of similar crisis in the char areas in both Patuakhali and Barguna districts.

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