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After years, new measures are bringing hope to individuals dwelling on the chars of Brahmaputra. Sukhi means completely satisfied. However there have been few completely satisfied moments within the lifetime of 70-year-old Sukhi Begum. She has misplaced her dwelling seven occasions within the final 50 years resulting from flooding and riverbank erosion by the Brahmaputra river. The mom of 5 nonetheless lives on a riverine island – referred to as a char – and fears her dwelling might be washed away once more. Nonetheless, persons are adapting in methods previous and new. There are indicators of hope.
“We got here to Pakuar Char of Sariakandi [in Bogura district of northern Bangladesh] round 50 years in the past,” she stated. “I nonetheless bear in mind the day once we had been first displaced resulting from riverbank erosion. We constructed houses there to start out a brand new life, however the river devoured our houses again and again.” Nonetheless, Sukhi doesn’t need to stay anyplace else. She is aware of that floods destroy, however additionally they convey contemporary silt from the Himalayas, making the chars essentially the most fertile land within the Bengal delta. “I used to be born in a char and need to breathe my final in a char too.”
The Brahmaputra – referred to as the Jamuna in Bangladesh – destroys chars and concurrently provides to them by depositing silt. Because it did so on one aspect of Pakuar Char, 34-year-old farmer Ziaur Rahman sowed jute, although he knew a flood may wash away his crop any time, particularly throughout the June-September monsoon. He has shifted his dwelling to a comparatively extra everlasting island – simply one other manner of adapting to the floods which are turning into extra frequent resulting from local weather change.
Folks dwelling on the Brahmaputra chars know that enormous elements of the low-lying sand-and-silt islands might be inundated each monsoon. It doesn’t take an enormous flood. Some increase the earthen foundations of their houses as excessive as they’ll afford to. Then they grasp their bedsteads from rafters, hammock type. Planks are hammered collectively to make lofts on the identical greater degree. That is the place they stay when the ground is flooded. However the water might rise additional. So, in nearly each dwelling, trunks of banana crops are lashed collectively to type rafts on which households will stay, generally for months. The wealthiest shelter in their very own boats. Huts, roads, markets – all are underwater.
“When floods inundate our homesteads, we should stay in lofts constructed inside homes or on boats or the rafts,” stated Ziaur. “When the state of affairs will get worse, individuals transfer to [government-run] shelters. However they don’t need to go there leaving their all belongings behind.” There’s one factor to be seen in each char family, nonetheless poor – a water-resistant field. Land title deeds and all authorized papers are rigorously folded inside polythene packets, that are saved contained in the field. The massive adaptation is in agriculture. Mozam Mondal of close by Char Shovagacha stated farmers are actually cultivating flood-tolerant sorts of maize. “I cultivated maize on one acre this 12 months and there was bumper manufacturing,” Mondal stated.
—Rafiqul Islam
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