Forgotten Bangladesh suffers the rains in silence, A million children...

[G_j]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5026763-107406,00.html

Forgotten Bangladesh suffers the rains in silence
A million children face acute illness or death within weeks, UN agencies warn, after double flooding washed away harvest

Lucy Ward in Dhaka
Wednesday September 29, 2004

The Guardian

For now, the "hygiene kit" - soap, candles, matches, two mosquito nets and basic clothing - is all that stands between the family of six and disease as this summer's catastrophic monsoon floodwaters finally recede.

"We tried to stay in our home, but it was too dangerous and we had to go to the relief shelter ," Helena, 27, says. "People helped each other with food but our house was destroyed, apart from the roof and one wall. We have moved back and patched up the walls with paper."

The Chaudhurys' village, Velanagar in Narshindi, three hours' drive along rain-damaged roads north-east of the capital, Dhaka, is typical of thousands of settlements battered this year by a double wave of fatal flooding.

In July and August, half of Bangladesh was inundated by rains and river flooding that killed more than 760 people, affected more than 30 million, and washed away untold numbers of homes, roads and vital subsistence crops.

..more..

[Hell Hath No Fury]

1. They need to...

discover oil, then maybe the West will give a shit about them. :mad:

[Gildor Inglorion]

2. I'm afraid even oil wouldn't help...

Poor Bangladesh! It seems to be a problem with no hope of a solution. Everything conspires against it. Some depressing facts from the CIA factbook:

Slightly smaller than Iowa, most of the country is situated on deltas of large rivers flowing from the Himalayas: the Ganges unites with the Jamuna (main channel of the Brahmaputra) and later joins the Meghna to eventually empty into the Bay of Bengal.

Population: 141,340,476 (July 2004 est.) many people are landless and forced to live on and cultivate flood-prone land. Water-borne diseases prevalent in surface water; water pollution, especially of fishing areas, results from the use of commercial pesticides; ground water contaminated by naturally occurring arsenic; intermittent water shortages because of falling water tables in the northern and central parts of the country; soil degradation and erosion; deforestation; severe overpopulation; routine occurrences of droughts, cyclones; much of the country routinely inundated during the summer monsoon season.

Imagine half the population of the United States squeezed into Louisiana and you'll get the picture. What hope can there be?

[paulk]

5. I flew over Bangladesh two years ago toward the end of monsoon

Through the breaks in the clouds you could see - the most dismal landscape - it looked like an endless lake dotted with islands and small strips of land.

Places like Bangladesh and nearby Nepal (which I'm more familiar with) are really depressing in the long run - such overwhelming problems and no solutions.

[leftchick]

3. It is horrible....

I saw some video on BBC and it is devastating...:(

[fedsron2us]

4. It is no accident so many people live in Bangladesh

In good years the country produces at least two rice harvests per year. The people have traded off the risk of flood for food just as many other river delta populations have done throughout history.

http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/article_9141.shtml

Unfortunately, it looks as though climate change is making the floods more frequent and the rice crop more vulnerable. Who is responsible for putting all that CO2 into the atmosphere ? Certainly not the people of Bangladesh. They are just the victims.