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Although the storm that struck southern Bangladesh luckily caused few fatalities, the downpour that accompanied it has provoked serious flooding and greatly worsened the living conditions of thousands of Bangladeshis. For the past week, the teams of Terre des hommes have been working hard to bring them aid.
In Patharghata, the situation is especially worrying. In this region, where 85% of the population lives from fishing and farming, the fields have been flooded and the retention basins used for the sand filters for drinking water have been destroyed or are contaminated.
Just now, the main urgency is to provide water for drinking as, depending on the area, between 70% and 90% of the families are now deprived of this and owing to the rising water levels, the flooded latrines are contaminating the environment.
An extensive response
On May 18, Tdh organized a meeting with the NGOs present in the region to respond in a coordinated and effective way to the needs of the communities.
In Patharghata and Charduani, 5,000 families, i.e. around 20,000 people, have had help from Tdh since the passage of the storm.
The health centres are also working at full throttle and four mobile clinics have been started off to the people otherwise cut off from everything.
In a week, more than 5,000 patients have been treated, mainly for injuries or cases of diarrhoea (40% of them children).
Our efforts continue
The Tdh teams will continue their activities for rapid assistance throughout the coming days, adding basic necessities lost or damaged by the floods to the distribution of drinking water to the villages and medical centres.
They will also continue to look after pregnant women, new-born babies and children under five, in particular to make sure that they receive a balanced diet and that the mothers do not stop breastfeeding.
Even if it is hard to rejoice in the midst of this disaster, there is a gleam of hope: 90% of the 96 raised family vegetable gardens (to avoid the floodwater) constructed by Tdh in the framework of a pilot project for disaster-risk reduction have stood up very well, and nearly half the vegetable plots are undamaged. These gardens can continue to produce up to 25kg of vegetables per month and per family during the monsoon.
