Black night of cyclone sidr, 2007

15th November, in the evening, I have heard about the upcoming cyclone and I called them to go to the cyclone center to be safe.

After that night when I saw the news in the television then I started to go my aunt’s house although the road was blocked by uprooted tree but with my bicycle I go there.

When I reached there I saw there is no house standing, everything destroyed. All the people are searching their relatives or their lost material. In their village 8 dead body found and almost 14 people washed away. It produce the catastrophic damage of economy and lives. All the crops are damaged and drinking water supply has been stopped. Almost all the people of that village are related with fish cultivation but after this everything is lost and their earning way has been totally stopped. According to the local government estimation, the total damage for the district was nearly 100 million us dollar.

Awareness of the people for the future storm:

After that catastrophic damage the local community decided to take some initial step to reduce the damage of the cyclone. Most of the people are poor but with the help of government, some NGO and mostly their own afford they build their house again strongly. With the help of some local volunteer they learn how to reduce the damage of the cyclone and how to save life by alerting people earlier.

I asked few question of a local fisherman about their knowledge of prevention and reduction of cyclone damages. They know almost every necessary thing to save their livelihood and their asset. He as totally aware about the cyclone situation (before, during and after). He give his idea about the food storage, money saving, drinking water management and health care. As a result now they have the basic knowledge who to reduce the damage of this kind of cyclone.

For this reason now I believe they will be well prepared to disasters in the future, specially the cyclone. I think they will be able to reduce the damage from disasters, protect their property, health, families as well as the whole community.