River eats up Bengal villages

People have been forced to seek temporary shelter

By Azizur Rahman in West Bengal

In the Indian state of West Bengal, victims of last month's devastating floods are facing a new threat.

My house stood where the midstream of Ichhamati is right now

Villager Golam Ali Sardar

Receding flood waters are eroding river banks and destroying houses and farmland.

More than 1,200 people were killed in the deluge while over 150 people are still missing.

The floods are said to have affected some 20 million people in West Bengal.

Homeless

Some 900 mud-and-thatch houses and 500 acres of farmland in the district of North 24 Parganas have been destroyed by the surging waters of the Icchamati river.

More than 4,000 homeless people have crammed schools, movie theatres and rooftops of buildings in nearby towns, away from the turbulent river.

"When floodwaters inundated vast areas of the state last month, we thought we were lucky, being located on higher ground. But now it is proved that we were wrong," said Tapan Kulavi of the Pundra village, which has lost 40 houses in the past two weeks.

"I went to town in the morning. In the afternoon when I returned I was shocked to find the river coursing through my land - my house stood where the midstream of Ichhamati is right now," said Golam Ali Sardar from the same village.

Caught unawares, local administration of the district has sounded a red alert in villages along the 15-km stretch of the Ichhamati.

"Many rivers of south Bengal and south-west Bangladesh are changing their courses over last few decades," said district official P K Biswas.

"But they never... eat up lands so fast. The river has coursed through as much as 40 metres inside some villages in just a fortnight - it is an unprecedentedly high rate of erosion," he said.

Raging waters

Last week the district administration took steps to stem the erosion in 18 villages of the district.

They used special bamboo structures and synthetic bags stuffed with bricks.

But they were not of much help as they were swept away by the river water coursing towards the Bay of Bengal.

The villagers and forest officials should take up special afforestation projects along the banks of Ichhamati

Environmentalist Subhash Datta

Following an emergency meeting, the West Bengal Government decided to take immediate measures to help the villages.

To bring down the level of water in the district administration was instructed to demolish artificial fish ponds along the river.

Efforts will also be made to 'straighten' the river around bends where the banks are being eroded.

As a long-term measure, stretches of the river are going to be desilted.

Deforestation

"For decades the rivers of this area have not been dredged of their silt. Because of their elevated river-beds their capacity to carry water has gone down by at least 40%," R N Rakshit, a geologist and water management expert at the University of Bombay, said.

Assessing the damage

"This 'dying delta'- comprising southern districts of Bangladesh and West Bengal - is going face the wrath of rivers and floodwaters again very soon," he warned.

Subhash Dutta, a well-known environmental campaigner in West Bengal, believes the mass felling of trees in these villages has worsened the situation.

"The villagers and forest officials should take up special afforestation projects along the banks of Ichhamati to provide the easiest solution to such massive land erosion," he said.

The situation is compounded by the fact that many of these villagers are not designated as "flood-affected" according to official records.

The villagers, therefore, are not entitled to any sort of flood relief and cannot apply for government aid.