Four days after the cyclone Remal's strike, several villages in the coastal district of Khulna's Koyra, Dakop and Paikgasa upazilas remain underwater, causing immense suffering to residents and damages of valuables.
Though efforts to repair the broken embankments have been ongoing for three days with the Water Development Board (WDB) and locals, temporary embankments are repeatedly breached by the tides, flooding surrounding areas.
WDB Officials and locals said the cyclone Remal caused breaches at eight points in the embankments across the three upazilas, resulting in the flooding of villages, fish enclosures and agricultural land.
Although repairs have been completed at five points, water continues to enter through the broken embankments at Dashhalia in Maharajpur Union, Dakshin Kaminibasia in Tiladanga Union under Dakop, and Perikhali village in Deluti Union of Paikgasa upazila.
Visiting the cyclone-hit areas, UNB’s Khulna correspondent noticed that efforts to repair the embankment at Dakshin Kaminibasia began on Thursday morning.
Despite completing around 60% of the repair work, the rising tide caused the temporary embankment to collapse, flooding 20 to 22 villages in Tiladanga and Pankhali unions.
Similarly, on Wednesday morning, over 200 people began repairing a broken dam in Dashhalia village of Koyra. Upon completing 80% of the work by noon it again got broken under the pressure of the full tide around 1:45pm, submerging hundreds of homes.
Local Nurul Islam, who participated in the repair work in Dashhalia village, blamed the WDB for their failure to provide necessary materials including sand-filled geo-bags while the locals were repairing.
Ashraful Alam, Executive Engineer-2 of WDB Khulna, admitted that the cyclone broke embankments at eight locations, allowing water to flood the areas.
Temporary embankments were constructed at five locations on the first day, he said, adding that maintaining the embankments at three sites has proven challenging despite continuous efforts.
He emphasised that their primary focus is currently on creating temporary barriers to prevent further water intrusion, with plans to undertake permanent repairs at the affected sites later.
