Today (Sunday) marks the 16th anniversary of Cyclone Aila, which struck the southwest coast on this day in 2009, breaching 597 kilometres of embankments and submerging homes, farmlands, and fish enclosures across Khulna, Bagerhat, and Satkhira.
The disaster claimed 190 lives, injured over 7,000 people, rendered more than half a million homeless, and caused losses amounting to Tk 269.28 million, leaving behind memories the survivors will never forget.
Though sixteen years have been on, the scars remain both emotional and infrastructural. Every year when May arrives, residents brace for disaster.
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Elderly citizens like Namisha Khatun of Harinkhola in Khulna’s Koyra upazila still live in fear, having lost everything to river erosion. “We don’t want relief,” she says, “We want durable embankments.”
Coastal residents say their major concerns are embankment failures and clean water shortages. Once self-reliant, many have become landless and impoverished, living on the edges of eroding riverbanks with no sustainable protection.
Despite repeated promises, no permanent embankments have been built since the Aila. Locals say that successive disasters, including recent threats like Cyclone Remal, have all struck during May, heightening anxiety each year.
According to the Water Development Board (WDB), Khulna’s Koyra, Paikgachha, and Dacope upazilas have 630 kilometers of embankments. Of this, 40 kilometers are now in vulnerable condition due to erosion and lack of maintenance. Nine kilometers have been deemed ‘extremely risky.’
In Koyra, a Tk 1,200-crore project to rebuild 32 kilometers of embankment under the Ministry of Water Resources began in December 2022, with a deadline of December 2024.
However, only 26 percent of the work has been completed so far with just 6 percent progress in the past four months. Field visits reveal sandbags piled along riverbanks, but core embankment heightening is yet to begin, raising fears of future breaches.
Villagers like Amal Mondal from Gatirgheri and local leaders, including UP member Sheikh Abul Kalam, warn that without immediate repairs, areas like Harinkhola and the Kapotakkho River embankment could suffer severe damage this monsoon.
Experts stress that many embankments built in the 1960s are outdated and too low to withstand modern tidal pressures.
Former Prof ABM Abdul Malek of Kopotakkho College urges a coordinated approach saying, “We need both durable embankment reconstruction and proper river dredging.”
WDB Executive Engineer Ashraful Alam said that repairs have started in high-risk areas and will expand based on urgency.
He blamed shortages of materials and inadequate sand supplies for delays in the work.