Climate change impacts in Bangladesh
With the Himalayas to the north and the Bay of Bengal to the south, Bangladesh sits on one of the world’s largest and most densely populated deltas, where the Jamuna, Padma and Meghna rivers converge.
With the Himalayas to the north and the Bay of Bengal to the south, Bangladesh sits on one of the world’s largest and most densely populated deltas, where the Jamuna, Padma and Meghna rivers converge.
The authorities in Chittagong decided to launch a drive demarcate vulnerable spots with red lines and move the people from such spots by dismantling their houses on the hill slopes. The drive is aimed at averting further landslides, officials said. Fears for fresh landslides after Monday's incident in which 11 slum dwellers were killed at Motijharna at Lalkhan Bazar prompted the authorities to make the decision at a meeting with the commerce and education adviser, Hossain Zillur Rahman, on Tuesday.
Residents of the city's West Dhanmondi area have been suffering from acute water crisis for long as the authorities concerned remain indifferent to the solution of the problem.
Economists on Tuesday criticised the World Trade Organisation for what they said were its destructive policies towards the poor nations for the interest of the developed economies.
Erosion by the River Jamuna continues to wreak havoc at different villages under Islampur and Dewanganj upazila in Jamalpur, rendering at least 800 families homeless in the last two weeks. About 1,200 houses at 13 villages under the two upazilas have been eroded during the period, leaving around 800 families homeless, local people said. Besides, a vast track of crop land and many business establishments went into the river water, they said.
The caretaker government yesterday asked for urgently undertaking the long-neglected Eastern Bypass-cum-Flood Control Embankment construction project to protect the eastern part of the city from floods. A high-level inter-ministerial meeting, presided over by Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, gave the directive as the government considered a package programme for solving waterlogging problem and ensuring civic amenities.
The government initiated the process to mark hillsides and valleys, where landslides are possible, as "Red Zones", evacuate people living in those areas and bring those areas under afforestation. The move comes a day after 11 people died in a mudslide at Matirjharna in Chittagong city. Commerce and Education Adviser Zillur Rahman gave the necessary directives to authorities concerned in this regard during a meeting in Chittagong yesterday. The meeting was held at the local circuit house following Monday's rain-induced mudslide that killed 11 people.
Heavy rain and onrush of hill waters from across the border have triggered flash flood in the district. About 50,000 people were marooned in Kalmakanda, Mohonganj and Khaliajuri upazilas in last three days. A major part of Netrakona Sadar upazila may go under water if rain continues for another day, said sources in Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB).
THE death of eleven people in a landslide in Chittagong raises all our old concerns about the precarious way lives are lived in this country. The fact that huge chunks of mud from a hill descended on fourteen homes, part of a slum, and took the lives of two families would be called by fatalists as an act of nature against which people have hardly any defence. But in reality this was courted, thanks to fiddling with nature and imprudent choice of site for habitation with commercial interests thrown in.
Standard Chartered Bank and UNAIDS Bangladesh have recently signed an agreement to form 'Bangladesh Business Coalition on AIDS' (BBCA) with a view to contributing to the national response to AIDS in the country. Shah Masud Imam, Regional Head, Corporate Affairs, South Asia of Standard Chartered Bank and Dan Odallo, Line Director, National AIDS/STI Progamme and UNAIDS Country Coordinator, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organizations in the city recently.
The power division has drafted a renewable energy policy with an ambitious target of meeting five per cent of total electricity demand by 2015 and 10 per cent by 2020 with renewable energy. At an inter-ministerial meeting, which reviewed the draft on Monday, power secretary M Fouzul Kabir Khan asked officials concerned to specify in the draft the tentative generation of electricity from a certain renewable source.