CIAO DATE: 10/2008
August 2007
June to October - the months of monsoon rains - is the typical disaster season in South Asia. The year 2007 is proving to be no exception. News broadcasts predictably cover the millions who have been affected by the floods as shanty dwellings collapse, school buildings crumble, roads get waterlogged, standing crops get swept away, women, men, and children are marooned without food, water and sanitation, and families are forced to migrate in distress. An estimated 20 million people have been affected in two-thirds of Bangladesh, low-lying Terai regions of Nepal, and vast stretches of the Gangetic plain in Eastern India.In some areas, the scale of the devastation in 2007 is truly unprecedented.
While floods are not new, erratic weather patterns wreak havoc. In 2007 the early arrival of the rains, their severity, and the continuous three-week spell have caused widespread misery. Bonna (large floods) in 1998 and 2004, which caused massive devastation in Bangladesh were also unwelcome disasters. Farmers, however often choose to live even in the flood-prone char and haor areas of Bangladesh because of the annual borsha (rain and inundation), which deposit rich silt on their farmlands and increase crop productivity to such an extent as to make them a lifeline. The most
vulnerable, including the landless, often have few other options but to live on these fragile habitats where the line between nature's bounty and fury is thin.
Implementation of flood control measures in themselves sometimes proves ineffective and exacerbates the problem. In Rupandehi and Nawalparasi districts of Nepal, wrongly designed culverts and embankments have been reported as a major cause of floods in recent weeks as they obstruct the flow of water. In the last fifty years in the Indian state of Bihar, the construction of 3430 km of flood-control embankments has ironically increased the flood-prone area from 2.5 million hectares to 6.9 million hectares. While large funds are routinely allocated for maintenance of embankments, implementation is often lax. As a result, in the last month alone, it is estimated that 75 embankments have breached in Bangladesh and around 90 in Bihar alone.
Embankments not only increase flood risk in downstream areas, between embankments, but even in ‘protected' areas due to the risk of breaching of walls. They prevent both rivers from overflowing their banks and discharge of floodwaters into rivers. Oxfam Programme Manager in East India, Lalchand Garg, categorically states, ‘Embankment breakage has been the major reason for the flood. Major governance issues around the maintenance of embankments, and whether they are the solution at all, are an essential public debate'.
Resource link: After the cyclone: lessons from a disaster [PDF] - 294K