Recovered bodies are brought to the shore in a dinghy. Image by Reporter#7619314. Copyright Demotix
On Sunday noon a passenger ferry reportedly packed with more than 100 passengers was hit by a cargo vessel 40 kilometres northwest of Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital. It subsequently sank.
A rescue vessel located the capsized vessel and attempted to pull it up. According to reports 37 bodies have been found and many are feared missing.
UPDATE: Child killed in Manikganj launch capsize, 60 rescued; 150 on board when hit by cargo trawler http://t.co/cM9zJNtjBy#Bangladesh
Passenger lists are rarely kept accurately, making it difficult to know how many people are missing when accidents occur. Many people have already been rescued from this particular craft, but it will take days to determine precise numbers. This is the country's second deadly boat accident in less than a fortnight.
Divers at work to pull the bodies out of the capsized passenger ferry. Image by Reporter#7619314. Copyright Demotix (22/2/2015)
Students of Army Public School, members of Civil Society, Pak Army staffs and large numbers of citizens held a candle light vigil to mourn the innocent victims. Image by ppiimages. Copyright Demotix (19/12/2014)
A group of Taliban gunmen dressed in military uniforms entered an Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, on December 16 and shot students and teachers walking from classroom to classroom. At least 148 people, 132 of them children, lost their lives in the attack and scores of the students were injured.
The following day, vigils were held in Karachi, Islamabad and other major cities throughout the country, which can be seen in these pictures.
There have also been numerous vigils across the world:
People at those vigils remembered the victims, protested against the barbarism, voiced their anger at the Taliban and echoed that children should be spared from such atrocities.
Here are images of some of those vigils:
A collection of candles and votives lit as part of a vigil in Trafalgar Square, London, to remember the dead school children and teachers killed by the Pakistani Taliban in Pakistan. Image by Emma Durnford. Copyright Demotix (17/12/2014)
A Candlelight vigil for the children of Peshawar is held in Longsight, Manchester outside the Pakistani Community Centre. Image by Barbara Cook. Copyright Demotix (20/12/2014)
Two hundred people gathered in front of the CNN Center in Atlanta for a candlelight vigil to honor victims killed during a Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan. Image by Steve Eberherdt Copyright Demotix (17/12/2014)
Columbia students and other members of the community joined a campus candlelight vigil to support the victims of the Peshawar attacks. Image by Mansura Khanam. Copyright Demotix (17/12/2014)
Indian congress workers and children pay tribute to those killed in the Taliban attack in Peshawar, Pakistan at a candle vigil in Allahabad, India. Image by Ritesh Shukla. Copyright Demotix (17/12/2014)
A candle light vigil and were held at the Pakistan High Commission in Bangladesh, this evening in remembrance of the innocent victims of the massacre at the Army public School peshawar.
Indian people lit candles as they took part in a candle-light vigil in memory of victims killed in a Taliban attack on a military-run school in Peshawar, in Amritsar. Image by Sanjeev Syal. Copyright Demotix (17/12/2014)
Childrens in Sivasagar, Assam lighting candles protesting the attack of Talibans in a school of Pakistan, image by Neelam Kakoty Majumdar. Copyright Demotix (18/12/2014)
Burdwan District Press Club organised a Candlelight Rally in At Burdwan, West Bengal, India, protesting against Taliban terror attack on Army Public School in Peshawar. Image by Sanjoy Karmaker (18/12/2014)
Children holding solidarity messages at the candle light vigil in Lahore, Pakistan. Image by Fatima Arif. Copyright Demotix (18/12/2014)
Spotted deers forage at the Kokilmoni forest in the Sundarbans, a UNESCO world heritage site. Bagerhat, Bangladesh. Image by Muhammad Mostafijur Rahman. Copyright Demotix
An oil tanker carrying 358,000 liters (almost 100,000 gallons) of furnace oil sank in the Shela river on December 7, spilling oil over more than 60 kilometers (about 37 miles) of the Sundarbans. Located on in southwest Bangladesh, the Sundarbans is the largest single block of tidal mangrove forest in the world, covering approximately 10,000 square kilometers (3,900 square miles), of which 60 percent is in Bangladesh. The Sundarbans, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is also one of the largest reserves for the Bengal tiger, and provides sanctuary to many other species.
According to reports, the new oil spill threatens the Mrigmari-Nondabala-Andharmanik dolphin sanctuary. Mangrove trees are also highly susceptible to oil pollution—indeed, they are expected to start dying after the area's aquatic life, which is typically first to perish. Fahim Hassan has put together an infographic on Flickr explaining the details of the devastation.
According to images Mowgliz Elisabeth Rubaiyat posted on Facebook, the disaster is already killing some animals. Local authorities appear to be outside their depth, never before having confronted so large an oil spill, and lacking the necessary infrastructure to respond properly. Al Jazeera reports several local fishermen have resorted to cleaning up the spill using sponges and sacks.
Many on Twitter have questioned the authorities' response:
Talk to the org that worked after 2010 Gulf oil spill! Seriously guys ... "Authorities clueless in the Sundarbans" http://t.co/z7vZPqVSuf
To help in the relief effort, the government dispatched a ship to the area carrying oil dispersants. If such chemicals are released incorrectly, however, it can harm the local ecology still further. Four days later, the state's efforts seem to have had little effect, exacerbating fears of a lasting ecological disaster.
Bangladesh's Water Transport Minister says locals were able to stop the oil from entering the forrest, using nets, and they're also working to remove the oil from the water, to keep the situation from becoming worse. The national Forest Department is leading the operation with 100 boats and 200 fishermen.
The Forest Department has filed a lawsuit for 1 billion Bangladeshi taka (about $13 million) against the owners of the two cargo ships responsible for the spill.
Just a month ago, before the spill, the Sunderbans mangrove forest looked like this:
Blogger Ahmed Sharif criticizes the government's ill-planned disaster-management strategy, saying it misunderstands the issue:
দুর্যোগ ব্যবস্থাপনা বলতে কি শুধু বন্যা-জলোচ্ছ্বাস বোঝায়? গত দুই দশকে অর্থনৈতিক দিক থেকে দ্রুত অগ্রগতির সাথে সাথে যেসব ঝুঁকির সৃষ্টি হয়েছে, সেগুলির জন্যে আমরা নিজেদের তৈরি করতে পারিনি। নদীতে জাহাজের সংখ্যা আগের চেয়ে বহুগুণ বেড়ে গেছে, কিন্তু তার সাথে পাল্লা দিয়ে তৈরি হয়নি মনিটরিং এজেন্সিগুলি। জাহাজ তৈরি হচ্ছে যথেচ্ছভাবে, যাত্রী নেওয়া হচ্ছে অতিরিক্ত, ফিটনেসবিহীন জাহাজ চলছে, নদীর পানি দূষণ করছে জাহাজের বর্জ্য, নদীর মাঝে পার্ক করে রাখা হচ্ছে জাহাজ, সঠিক যন্ত্রপাতি ছাড়াই চলছে জাহাজ, চলাচলের সময় ঠিক করে দেয়ার পরেও কেউ মানছেনা – কেউ দেখার নেই। কাজেই দুর্ঘটনার সম্ভাবনা প্রতিদিন বেড়েই চলেছে। আর দুর্ঘটনার সম্ভাবনা বাড়লেও সেটার জন্যে প্রস্তুতি নেই আমাদের।
Is disaster-management confined to floods and cyclones? In past decades, the country has seen accelerated economic development and increased risks. But we could not keep pace to prepare ourselves for those added risks. The commercial ships in our waterways have multiplied, but our monitoring agencies couldn't keep up. Many ships are being built outside the proper guidelines, carrying passengers over their capacity. Many ships are unfit to operate, they dispose of waste improperly, they block waterways indiscriminately, they break schedules—nobody is monitors any of this. So there is an increased risk of accidents, and we are not prepared for these accidents and disasters.
YouTube user A. K. M. Wahiduzzaman uploaded a video capturing the devastation of the oil spill:
The body of the first dolphin, a rare Irrawadi dolphin, to die in this incident was discovered last Friday. According to reports, the Padma Oil Company has managed to remove about 10,000 liters (about 2,600 gallons) of oil in its cleanup efforts, so far. The company is offering to pay volunteer cleanup-workers 30 Bangladeshi taka (about 40 cents) for every liter (about 34 ounces) of oil recovered.
What is perplexing is the rudimentary cleaning operation. With offer of Taka 30/= per litre for furnace oil recovered, thousands have jumped in, not to save the Sundarbans but to eke an existence. Obviously for the poorest of the poor this is a windfall. However, have not heard anyone talk about the risk to human health from dangerous toxins in the furnace oil. Anywhere else in the world the Government would have faced public litigation suit for endangering citizens health. I see thousands of poor and ignorant people dying in the days ahead thanks to Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation's myopic decision. Our focus should not only be for hunt of dead dolphins - but contaminated humans!
There have been protests demanding that the authorities ban merchant ships and cargo vessels from using the rivers and channels of the Sundarbans. Absent effective government measures, Bangladesh will have to keep relying on civil society and volunteers in this environmental crisis.
Players and officials of Bangladesh-Zimbabwe and the spectators stand up for one minute silence for Australian batsman Phillip Huges before the fourth One Day International match at Sher-e-Bangla Natioanl Cricket Stadium in Mirpur. Dhaka. Image by Reaz Sumon. Copyright Demotix. (28/11/2014)
A simple tribute from a cricket fan to Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes, who died November 27, has gone viral in Australian and around the world.
Australian star cricketer Phillip Hughes died as a result of injuries he sustained when he was struck by a bouncer on Tuesday during a domestic league game at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Hughes was wearing a helmet, but the ball made contact with an unprotected area, damaging his vertebral artery which caused bleeding in the brain. He died two days later at a Sydney hospital from his injuries, three days shy of his 26th birthday.
In a gesture of respect, IT worker Paul Taylor put his old cricket bat outside the front door of his home in Sydney with a cricket cap slung on the handle and tweeted the picture to his followers with the hashtag #putoutyourbats. The idea soon caught on among mourning fans in Australia and beyond.
Hughes was born in Macksville, a small town on the north coast of New South Wales, and was so talented that he had his grade A debut at the age of 12. To mark his passing, matches were cancelled in Australia and in other countries. Cricketers across the world have tweeted to commemorate him:
Picture of Rajshahi University Campus in a misty winter morning. Image from Flickr by Kamrul Hasan. December 16, 2013 (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Professor Shafiul Islam, a professor of sociology in Rajshahi University was attacked with a machete by unknown assailants outside his home in Rajshahi city on November 15. He died from his injuries in a nearby hospital some hours later. According to news reports, the professor led a push to ban students wearing full-face veils at his university in 2012, stoking the wrath of Islamist hardliners. The professor argued that full-face veils made it difficult to identify individual students and that they could even be used to cheat on university examinations.
Rajshahi is a major urban and industrial centre of North Bengal and is located on the river Padma near Bangladesh-India border. Rajshahi University is a stronghold of the religious political party Jamaat and its student wing Islami Chatra Shibir. Pro-Jamaat newspapers in 2010 reported that Shafiul Islam had banned the burqa as the then-chair of the university’s sociology department, a policy that offended religious sentiments among many in the majority-Muslim country. At that time, Shafiul had sent rejoinders to some of those newspapers claiming that he had only expelled one female student from his class because she was cheating using her burqa.
A previously unknown Islamist group claimed responsibility for Shafiul's killing, after opening a Facebook page late on Saturday:
According to reports, the Facebook page generated more than 2,000 likes from people who appeared to support the killing. In a long status update on November 17, posts on the page hinted at who might be the next targets of the group. One status update gave an exhaustive list of potential targets including university and secondary school faculty, public representatives and local opinion leaders, heads of organisations, judges, lawyers, doctors, intellectuals, journalists, and even actors.
After the Facebook page link was published by various media outlets, netizens flagged the page using Facebook's abuse reporting system, arguing that it violates the platform's Community Standards. The first section of Facebook’s Community Standards reads:
Safety is Facebook's top priority. We remove content and may escalate to law enforcement when we perceive a genuine risk of physical harm, or a direct threat to public safety. You may not credibly threaten others, or organize acts of real-world violence.
The Community Standards also address harassment:
Facebook does not tolerate bullying or harassment. We allow users to speak freely on matters and people of public interest, but take action on all reports of abusive behavior directed at private individuals. Repeatedly targeting other users with unwanted friend requests or messages is a form of harassment.
Nevertheless, in the days following the page's publication, Facebook responded to abuse reports with generic messages such as these:
Screenshot of Facebook's reply
Screenshot of Facebook's reply.
Netizens persisted in reporting the page as an abuse of Facebook's Community Standards. On Nov. 18, 2014 Facebook removed the page.
Screenshot of Facebook reply.
Police say that they believe the killing may have been perpetrated by militants backed by the conservative religious Jamaat-e-Islami group.
Rajshahi University has seen killings of its teachers Professor Mohammad Yunus in 2004 and Professor Taher Ahmed in 2006. Pranab Kumar Panday writes in an op-ed in the Daily Star:
It is really unfortunate to see that public university teachers are being harassed and killed very often. [..] These incidents are creating a sense of insecurity among the teachers of public universities. They are also indicative of the deterioration of law and order in the country.
Meanwhile, the threats continue. The Facebook page that claimed responsibility for killing Shafiul Islam recently announced their next target. The post reads:
Next Target . . . teacher of Bogra Govt. Women`s College. Offense: Banning burka. Offense date: September 2014. Punishment: Death. Chance: Yes. All atheists who oppose Islam be careful.
During the Eid holidays, Carnival Park at Jamuna Future park welcomed a large number of visitors. On October 7, 2014, one of its attractions, the 360-degree shuffle ride, stopped in the middle of a ride. Everyone on-board was stuck in their seats for about an hour. The ride had no emergency backup system, preventing a normal shutdown, delaying the release of its riders. Rescue workers had to free every individual manually, in a rather painstaking process.
Facebook user Sultanul Nahian Hasnat was present at the mishap and later uploaded to Facebook two videos (click her to watch the 1st and the 2nd), which went viral. These are now available on YouTube, also.
There was no mention of this incident in the local mainstream news.
You might wonder, what a peculiarly named volcano (Eyjafjallajökull -how do you pronounce it?) in Iceland can mean to Europe.
Eyjafjallajökull is actually a glacier in Iceland which covers a volcano (1,666 metres or 5,466 ft in height) which has erupted relatively frequently since the Ice Age. The volcano eruption in 14 April (see pictures) caused massive disruption to air traffic across Northern Europe. From Wikipedia:
"On 14 April 2010 Eyjafjallajökull resumed erupting after a brief pause, this time from the top crater in the centre of the glacier, causing meltwater floods (also known as jökulhlaup) to rush down the nearby rivers, and requiring 800 people to be evacuated. This eruption was explosive in nature and it threw volcanic ash several kilometres up in the atmosphere which led to travel disruptions in northwest Europe on the 15th and 16th of April 2010 including the closure of airspace over most of Northern Europe."
The above picture (click to enlarge) will explain why the volcanic ash is dangerous for Flights.
"The dust cloud from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano may affect 6 million passengers if the disruption extends to April 18, and the revenue loss may reach $1 billion, according to the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, a Sydney-based consulting firm."
Source of Images:
1) Volcano Eruption - by Flickr user Sveinn71
2) Hazards to aviation from volcanic ash cloud - by The Christian Science Monitor
3) Ash cloud impact in Europ - BBC News
Chile was rocked by a giant 8.8 scale earthquake today at 3:34am local time (6:34am GMT). The minute and a half long earthquake caused much damage in the country and triggered Tsunami upto 7.7 ft (2.34 meter) high. Many countries have been alerted for possible Tsunami damages and Hawaii is preparing a mass evacuation program to protect people from Tsunami. Here is an image showing how the Chilean earthquake's energy is expected to spread through the ocean:
The death toll in Chile was reported at 82 and the number is fast rising. The epicenter was 70 miles from Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city. Several big aftershocks (as strong as 6.9, 6.2 and 5.6 scales) later hit the country, especially in the south.
# Santiago Airport closed for structural damage to the control tower.
# Smaller villages in the Maule province with up to 80% of their homes to the ground.
# New death toll: 122
# International flights to Santiago de Chile are being diverted to Mendoza and Buenos Aires in Argentina.
# Santiago's main fiber cable has been snapped.
# Big fire on the outskirts of Santiago.
# The next problem is the potential flooding Chile
Here is a link to the Live streaming of local news from Chile:
Many regions in the world seems to be tackling a cold wave in the recent history. You can see the amazing pictures here, even in unusual places liek UAE and Saudi Arabia. For countries like Bangladesh Temperature dropping to close to 10 degrees is a disaster for many rural people as their homes or their clothes are not equipped to withstand this cold.
This reminds me of a Hollywood science fiction movie I watched recently "The Day After Tomorrow". The movie showed that due to global warming, melting of the polar ice had begun disrupting the North Atlantic current. It triggered violent weather across the world causing mass destruction. A hurricane like superstorm developed which had an eye where temperature dropped below -150 degree freezing everything in its path and leading to taking half of the world towards ice age. The developments may look like fantasy, but the theory has some merit as we can see from the affects of the recent weather.
I hope we will get some realistic explanation from the scientists.
Overall what we know for sure is weather was a factor and the flight definitely crossed through a thunderstorm complex. There is a definite correlation of weather with the crash. However the analysis indicates that the weather is not anything particularly exceptional in terms of instability or storm structure. It's my opinion that tropical storm complexes identical to this one have probably been crossed hundreds of times over the years by other flights without serious incident.
Still, in the main MCS alone, the A330 would have been flying through significant turbulence and thunderstorm activity for about 75 miles (125 km), lasting about 12 minutes of flight time. Of course anything so far is speculation until more evidence comes in, and for all we know the cause of the downing could have been anything from turbulence to coincidental problems like a cargo fire.
According to the previous prediction weather system "Bijli" gained strength to be a Tropical cyclonic storm is and rushing into Bangladesh's Southern shores, packing winds up to 90 kph. Warning signals have been raised by the authorities (more in BD News24).
People in Bangladesh has been complaining about extreme heat. The warm sea temperature is a bit to bother. Remember cyclone Nargis which striked Myanmar last year? It gained its energy due to warm ocean temperature:
Cyclones thrive on warm layers of ocean water that are at least 26 degrees Celsius (79 degrees Fahrenheit). As they traverse the ocean, they typically draw deep, cold water up to the ocean surface, a process that limits their ability to strengthen, and even weakens them as they evolve.
The satellite pictures are showing that it will make a landfall in the Chitatgong and Cox's Bazar region onto Myanmar:
Update: TV channels are reporting that people are being evacuated as heavy rain and gusty winds increased in coastal lines. The landfall is expected during early morning of Saturday. BRAC blog reports:
Cyclone Bijli has hit land in Bangladesh as a category 1 storm. BRAC is currently monitoring Cyclone Bijli and all teams are prepared to respond. We have been coordinating closely with the Bangladeshi government and will continue to track the progress of the Cyclone.
Update III: Thanks God Bijli did not do significant damage. According to BDNews24.com:
* At least five people, including two children, were killed (mostly due to lightening and tree fall) * Reports were received of over 600 houses and about 650 hectares of cropland being damaged * Thousands of mud-and-thatch homes were destroyed. * Cyclone Bijli turned into a land depression early Saturday morning after striking the Chittagong-Cox's Bazar coastline overnight with winds of up to 100 kph. * Chittagong seaport was up and running again from morning.Chittagong airport, which had also been closed the previous night, was operating again from 8am.
A tropical storm/cyclone is intensifying in the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh has issued a cyclone alert.
According to the prediction in Weather Underground it is going to miss most parts of Bangladesh and will be a tropical storm only. But we have seen that these weather systems so often intensify and/or change course.
Tropical cyclone (tc) 01b (bijli) located approximately 265 nm south-southwest of kolkata, India, has tracked north-northeastward at 11 knots over the past 06 hours. The initial position is based on animated visible satellite imagery and a 16/0800z trmm microwave pass with a high degree of confidence. The initial intensity remains at 45 knots based on the Dvorak estimate from pgtw. Upper level analysis indicates the system is tracking along the northwest periphery of a subtropical ridge centered over Myanmar. The ridge is expected to gradually move south, enhancing a more northeasterly progression for tc 01b. There is no significant change to previous forecast philosophy-the system will intensify slightly during the next 36 hours as it continues to track over warm sea surface temperatures and under low vertical wind shear before it makes landfall then dissipate near the bangladesh-Myanmar border. The majority of available numeric models are in agreement with this forecast. Maximum significant wave height at 161200z is 14 feet. Next warnings at 162100z and 170300z.//
After Mumbai, now its Karachi. Newspapers report that four persons killed and 77 got injured in Karachi ethnic violence . GEO reports:
The riots started in Banaras area where unknown armed-men opened fire at passing vehicles and also pelted them with stones, killing four including a woman and injuring 54 others.
Unknown men also set on fire 7 vehicles in different parts of the city.
This year heavy rains have brought floods again in Bangladesh. According to today's news 25 percent of Bangladesh's landmass is flooded. I was watching a Bangladeshi channel where it was showing that a damn is protecting a small town. The area outside the damn is submerged in waist high water. People are struggling to lead their lives. They don't have their personal boats, so its hard to commute. Children cannot go to school which is also submerged. Students cannot go to the college inside the city because the bus has stopped commuting. The District Commissioner was on the camera. He says these people are used to this lifestyle and these places are usually submerged at this time of year. The time has not come yet to engage administrative resources.
This cannot be compared with Venice, which is a city with all its basic amenities functioning except they commute in waterways. The people of Venice don't have to walk in waist deep water. Each year many Bangladeshis have to bear this pain and our usual response is "hey they are used to this".
So why do people cling to their dwellings in these locations? Tahmima Anam tries to answer the question in her article in guardian.co.uk about the char-dwellers of Bangladesh:
"Who owns the land," I ask, "is it the government?" He smiles in such a way that I feel foolish for even asking. Of course not; a place that will only exist for an unknowable amount of time is not going to come under the umbrella of the state.
Chars don't become habitable until they are a few years old. You can tell their age, Bahar tells me, by the wild plants that grow on them. When chars are taken by the river, often their inhabitants have to move in with their relations, or find some other piece of land on which to build a house. In any case, they will only have enough on which to live: they have nothing to till, so the men hire themselves out as weavers or day-labourers. This is why, according to development-speak, char-dwellers are the "hard-core poor". It is because they own nothing, and even the ground beneath their feet is a fleeting luxury.
Tons of food aids of WFP are waiting in Bangladesh to be flown to Burma for the Cyclone Nargis victims. Red tapes in visas from Burmese embassy are slowing the process of flying them to Burma.
Burma's junta seized U.N. aid shipments Friday meant for a multitude of hungry and homeless survivors of last week's devastating cyclone, forcing the world body to suspend further help. The aid included 38 tons of high-energy biscuits and arrived in Burma on Friday on two flights from Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates.
"All of the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated," U.N. World Food Program spokesman Risley said.
"For the time being, we have no choice but to end further efforts to bring critical needed food aid into Myanmar at this time," he said.
Myanmar’s government acknowledged taking control of the shipments and said it plans to distribute the aid itself to the affected areas.
In a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press, government spokesman Ye Htut said the junta had clearly stated what it would do and denied the action amounted to a seizure.
In a statement in the official media after Myanmar turned back a team of Qatari rescue workers coming in on an aid flight this week, the foreign ministry said Myanmar would accept ”relief in cash and kind” but not foreign aid workers.
Myanmar says it will accept aid from all countries, but prohibits the entry of foreign workers who would deliver and manage the operations. The junta is “not ready” to change that position.
The cyclone Nargis was deadly as predicted and it caught Myanmar of guard. The figures we read everyday never seem to stop depressing you, from 22,000 to 100,000 - now 600,000).
Cyclone Nargis is a Category 3 storm packed winds of 190 km (120 mile) per hour. However BBC quoted a wrong info that It was the world’s deadliest storm in ten years. Only last November (2007) The hurricane Sidr made a downfall in Southern Bangladesh - it was a Category-4 equivalent tropical cyclone with 215 km/h wind speed and water surge of Tidal waves reaching up to a height of 3 metres (9.8 ft) were reported.
The cyclone Pundit Chris Mooney has details on why Nargis was so catastrophic:
"It had been a fairly weak storm, and then it just started exploding even as it headed toward the coastline. So people didn't even know there was a bad storm coming until maybe just 24 or 48 hours out. And it kept getting worse and worse and worse, and then it hit a vulnerable place."
It may be noted that Bangladesh did prepare a lot for SIDR. A total of 2 million people in Bangladesh evacuated to emergency shelters. Otherwise the death toll would be catastrophic. Most of those who were dead defied the warnings and stayed home. The after cyclone relief and rescue operations were also swift. Over 40,000 Red Cross volunteers were deployed to order residents in the 15 affected provinces into special cyclone and flood shelters. In contrast to the Burmese situation, The Bangladeshi military forces played a significant role in providing helicopters and boats to reach to remote locations and of course helping in relief and rescue.
What did the Burmese Government do to protect its people? Eyewitnesses say that even no forces were seen to help cleanup the debris in the capital. And now slow relief work is not making the situation better for the victims.
This is the real tragedy of people when its ruler are so alienated from the people and are only concerned about their powers. God save the people of Myanmar.
Check Burma Cyclone for information, commentaries, links for donations etc.
Any cyclone is a bad news, especially for the countries surrounding the Bay of Bengal. Because of the shape of the bay any tropical weather system tend to push towards the pointed peak, where Bangladesh lies.
Tropical Cyclone Nargis is gathering strength and momentum somewhere over west central Bay and adjoining southwest Bay, some 1000 km away from Bangladesh. (Image credit: Weather Underground -click here for update)
Although the prediction on April 28 that the cyclone will move towards Myanmar, it still can change course and hit Bangladesh. However the Weather office only issued warnings to all fishing boats and trawlers and requested to stay close to the coast.
What's most troubling is that Nargis has a very warm Indian Ocean to travel over, as you can see in this data from the Atlantic Oceanic and Meteorological Laboratory: A Very Warm Bay of Bengal Means Cyclone Nargis Will Hit Hard – Somewhere.
According to the Joint Typhoon warning center, The cyclone is on a course to make a landfall in Myanmar in 48 to 72 hours, but this can change rapidly. The waves can rise to as high as 27 feet.
God save Bangladesh this time.
Update- May 1, 2008: Experts say the cyclone has altered its course and within a day it will hit the Chittagong coastal region in the Southeast. Bangladeshi farmers have been urged to speed up the rice harvest before the cyclone.
State television, which was still off air in Rangoon more than 36 hours after Nagris slammed into the city of five million, reported 20 000 homes destroyed on one island alone.
Utter war zone," one diplomat said in an email to Reuters in Bangkok. "Trees across all streets. Utility poles down. Hospitals devastated. Clean water scarce."
Death toll 351 and rising according to official figures.
Bangladesh has been fighting fighting a tiring battle against the Avian bird Flu disease for more than a year. But like many things India has been blaming Bangladesh for spreading the disease. They even claim that the virus came to India by "winds blowing from Bangladesh'. FLA_MEDIC from USA tells that this is almost impossible.
The West Bengal government, however, ignored early reports of bird deaths back in December, and failed to act swiftly enough to contain the virus. The virus reportedly spread, virtually unhindered, for nearly a month. And once action was taken, it was often poorly organized and only partially effective.
The H5N1 bird flu virus may well have come into India by way of Bangladesh (unproven, but certainly possible), but it became entrenched due to the slow and often ineffective actions by the local government.
But, when local economies are affected, and lives are negatively impacted, it is only good politics to shift the blame to a neighboring country.
The international media are at it again. A light of a world wide famine beaconing, which is a favorite topic for any media professional. You will see picture galleries full of hungry people fighting for food, skinny children waiting for help makes any journalistic work easy. ABC News terms the recent food riots around the world as an apocalyptic warning predicting hundreds of thousands of starving people in Asia and Africa. The World Bank announces “the world is moving towards a food crisis that may lead to wars and riots”.
What I fail to understand is why it took so long to raise the alarm? Many are trying to find out the cause of the recent crisis.
I recently wrote on the recent price rise of rice in Bangladesh and its impacts. Shortage in production and increasing demands have been sighted as the problems. There are also a list of problems and solutions that looks so complex and harder to achieve in a short time.
And some are terming it as subprime food crisis as surging oil prices made US dollar got weak leading to the subprime loan crisis making worldwide imports (in US Dollars) costlier.
According to a recent report of the World Bank names Western investment in biofuels as the cause of the drastic rise in prices for corn, rice, and other staples.
Concerns over oil prices, energy security and climate change have prompted governments to take a more proactive stance towards encouraging production and use of bio-fuels. This has led to increased demand for bio-fuel raw materials, such as wheat, soy, maize and palm oil, and increased competition for cropland.
It has long struck me as wrongheaded, if not immoral, to take cheap, efficient sources of nutrition to turn them into expensive, inefficient fuels. A gallon of ethanol produces roughly two-thirds the energy of a gallon of gasoline and is far more expensive. And, while farmers and, especially, processors make more money by the increased demand for biofuels, it means that food is now out of reach for millions.
Politicians in both the United States and the European Union are mandating that vast quantities of food be turned into fuel as they chase the chimera of "energy independence."...The result of these mandates is that about 100 million tons of grain will be transformed this year into fuel, drawing down global grain stocks to their lowest levels in decades. Keep in mind that 100 million tons of grain is enough to feed nearly 450 million people for a year.
Dennis Avery from the Hudson Institute says "Biofuels are purely and simply the biggest Green mistake we've ever made and we're still making it." So Bio fuel mandates must go.
