"We’ve devised a plan to cover our 710-km coastal area with RCC mouldings. If we can do this, it’ll protect our coastal belt from not only cyclones, but also from the sea level rise,” he said.
The state minister made the remarks at a roundtable conference titled 'Grisly November 12: Sustainable Coastal Thinking' jointly arranged by Coast Foundation and EduAid at the Jatiya Press Club.
He said the government has constructed 11,604 disaster-resilient houses for the homeless people and the construction of 23,000 more is underway. “We have a plan to build 3 lakh such homes.”
Dr Enamur said 2,108,758 coastal residents were evacuated to some 5,788 cyclone shelters before cyclonic storm ‘Bulbul’ lashed the country early Sunday. "In Bangladesh's history, we took highest number of people to the shelter centres this time," he said.
He further said the government is planning to construct climate-resilient structures with own funds like the Padma Bridge.
The state minister said the Disaster Management and Relief Ministry does not want to keep its activities limited only to relief distribution. "We want to create a disaster-tolerant state...we don’t want any kind of disaster to cause death in the country," he said.
Earlier, Coast Foundation Coordinator M Amirul Haque Pervez put forward a set of demands, including the announcement of November 12 as the 'Coast Day'.