Today, 25 May, marks 17th anniversary of the devastating Cyclone Aila. Despite nearly two decades passing, the scars in Satkhira’s coastal regions remain unhealed, with residents still struggling for food, clothing, shelter, and safe drinking water.
The catastrophic cyclone struck the south-west coastal region on 25 May 2009. Tidal surges, reaching 14 to 15 feet above normal levels, swept away thousands of people, livestock, and homes in an instant.
Millions of hectares of shrimp farms and crops were submerged, while coastal protection embankments and numerous religious and educational institutions were destroyed. In total, 73 people, including women and children, lost their lives.
According to the Shyamnagar Upazila Project Officer’s office, Aila claimed 73 lives in Satkhira alone and injured over 200 others. In the immediate aftermath, 595,122 people were left homeless across the affected areas, with 243,293 displaced in Shyamnagar alone. A total of 142,244 houses were wrecked.
The destruction extended to vital infrastructure: 399 educational institutions and over 300 mosques and temples were fully or partially destroyed. About 179 kilometres (km) of roads were completely ruined, while 117 km of embankments vanished into the rivers. In Shyamnagar, 97 km of the 127 km coastal protection embankment was entirely wiped out. The contamination of over a thousand tubewells and 2,000 ponds left hundreds of thousands in a crisis for drinking water.
Seventeen years later, areas like Gabura, Padmapukur, and Pratapnagar in Assasuni continue to face dire conditions. The scarcity of potable water remains acute, forcing residents to travel miles for a jar of water.
The environment has also been fundamentally altered; once lush with greenery and crops, the soil is now toxic with salinity, leaving the landscape dominated by thousands of bighas of shrimp enclosures (ghers) rather than trees or paddy.
The situation was further exacerbated by Cyclone Amphan on 20 May 2020, which struck as a double blow to an already fragile community. Residents now live in constant fear, as any news of an approaching storm brings the anxiety of further embankment collapse.
Gabura Union Parishad (UP) Chairman Masudul Alam noted that while the cry for basic needs persists, a 27-km sustainable embankment project, funded by the Government of Bangladesh (GoB), is currently underway in his union.
Md Ashraful Alam, executive engineer of Satkhira Water Development Board (Division-01), confirmed that the 27-km sustainable embankment work is 62 per cent complete.
The project is expected to be finished by June of the next financial year. Additionally, a 2.5-km permanent embankment project funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is ongoing in Shyamnagar.
Officials believe that once these projects are completed, the long-standing demand for sustainable protection will be met, finally securing the lives and property of the coastal population from the threat of natural disasters.
