Flood and River Erosion in Sariakandi, or: No Way You Can Stay

My second Field Trip goes up north, to Bogra, where the NGO SKS, together with UNDP, is implementing a project called "Flood-Resilient Recovery" in villages next to Jamuna, one of the three big rivers flowing thorough Bangladesh.(known as Brahmaputra in India).

The journey begins with my first bad Bangladeshi experience. People at ICCAD have warned my over and over again that I should be careful to always stay safe, especially when travelling on my own. I try to explain that safety is only a feeling, and I alway feel safe here - but I still agree when Mizan and his friend working at SKS suggested me to book this 4-Star-Hotel for the night I have to stay in Bogra while visiting the project in close-by Sariakandi Upazila.
Turns out I have to pay 3600 Taka for one night - which is about twice as much as the "slum" women I met in Khulna earn within a whole months. The supposed-to-be-existing pool and gym both are "currently under construction". The hotel is totally unbangladeshi, cold and steril, the other guests are business men.
And for WIFI, they want to charge me 300 Taka for each device! I feel like being back in Germany already.

If I had just taken an overnight bus - maybe I would have lost all my money to a pickpocket. This way, I loose all my money for sure. And it does not even go to someone urgently in need for it.

A very different setting next morning, when I finally visit one of the project sites in
Chanbanbaisha Union, Sarikandi Upazila. The houses in the villages scattered alongside the river Jamuna are run-down, many deserted. SKS-worker Ashraf tells me that about 70% of the 10 000 people that are officially registred in Chanbanbaisha have migrated in recent years.

Jamuna regularly bursts its banks after monsoon season. In recent years, however, bonnas, i.e. unexpected and unusually high and destructive floods, are increasing.

Community members tell me that a huge flood in 2014 destroyed their houses, and all their assets, leaving them homeless and deprived of any livelihood opportunity. 

The women are trying to recover from their losses, and learn to build resilience towards future hazards. With the help of SKS, they have formed "self-help groups" to achieve skill trainings, and develop business ideas. Women are taking the lead in these actions.

SKS and UNDP also provide the homless with new houses. As many people have lost their land, the project also tries to acquire government-owned khash land, which, according to law, should be provided to landless, but is often occupied for agriculture, or rented profitably. 

The houses can easily be taken apart, transported to another place and set up there. Projects participants construct the houses themselves, and are provided with trainings on how, and when they have to move their homes if the next flood will hit the area.

 

They provide a sheltering roof, solid walls, and a door to lock at night. Padina, 12 years old, and her aunt were living on the road since their house was washed away. "We still have no food", they say, "but at least we can protect our assets, and ourselves. We are able to sleep at night.
Padina has decorated the walls of her new home with drawings. For girls, being homeless in a destroyed area, surrounded by desperate strangers, is especially hazardous. 

But the new homes are a safe place only temporarly.
Yes, they can be removed easily when the next flood hits - but where to rebuild afterwards? The local government in Chanbanbaisha says it has already run out of khash land - and neighbouring Unions refuse to share their, keeping it for their own people. The displaced therefore depend on good-will of neighbours and relatives. But land is getting increasingly scarce.

River erosion is continously progressing. In front of our eyes, what used to be a house, part of a whole village, goes down into the water.
It is horrofying to see, and even more horrofying that there is apparently no way to stop this.

This school had to be evacuated and moved to a new place, further away from the river, two times already in the last year. Because the building is way too small, pupils are tought in two shifts, with teachers working from early in the morning till late at night. As Jamuna does not stop to expand, the children are already trained for the next evacuation.

I travel back to Dhaka with a sinking feeling of fatalism.

Flood-resilient, removable houses (including a latrine) surely are helpful for the people of this area. But when loss and damage hit, adaptation is just not possible any more.

The government is currently constructing a huge embankment, which will protect most of the houses in Sariakandi - though not the school and a couple of hundred other building situated close to the river bank.
Noone can answer my question, however, whether the embankment itself will be able to sustain river erosion - or just vanish into the water eventually like all other buildings did before.