Community and Organizational Response to the Cyclone Affected People in Coastal Bangladesh: A Study on Two Villages in Bagerhat

Abstract

The present doctoral research is designed to potraty Community and Organizational Response to the Cyclone Affected People in Coastal Bangladesh and in doing such the research was conducted in villages of Bagerhat District — one of the severe disaster prone areas among the 41 coastal districts of Bangladesh. Almost every year, it has been affected by natural disasters like — cyclone, tidal surge, north-wester, severe salinity etc. Different types and ranges of cyclones ravaged Bagerhat District and victimized its inhabitants in a desolate state of attack recurrently. This study examines the community and organizational responses and initiatives that they employ to the cyclone affected people for their adaptation and survival in different phases of cyclonic disaster in coastal Bangladesh. The cyclonic disaster stimulates the affected people to respond and formulate various adaptive and survival strategies in different ways which are indigenous to their lifestyle and imposed by the organizations. This research is administrated by survey, in-depth interview, case study and FGD for data collection by using purposive sampling during March 2009 to June 2011. The coastal communities of Rayenda and Uttar Sauthkhali were highly dependent on the natural resources for earning their livelihoods and most of cyclone victims of the two study villages were poor in financial, intellectual, and technological capacities. The average level of poverty of the coastal district was higher than the national average by 3 percent. Around half of the extreme poor households lived in the high to very high-risk cyclone inundation areas. This study identified five major vulnerabilities of communities of Rayenda and Uttar Sauthkhali: acute poverty, non-resistant dwelling buildings to cyclone, delta basin, saline water intrusion and changes in coastal morphology. It was forecasted that these vulnerabilities would be acute due to the combined effects of climate changes, sea level rise, subsidence, and change of upstream river drainage, cyclones, and coastal embankments. From the several generations the respondents have been dwelling on this coastal cyclone affected areas and consequently they experienced and perceived cyclone as hazard to their livelihood. This identification drived them to adopt various techniques, i.e. indigenous hazard assessment, pre-cyclone, during cyclone and post cyclone adaptations, indigenous long term adaptation techniques etc., in their own ways to response community and organizational initiatives for their survival. It was quite disappointing that the cyclone affected people were not awared about cyclone warnings. For this reason, they deployed various indigenous warning indicators depend on environment, animal behavior, ecology and astronomy etc. in their own fashion. This study explored the community of Rayenda and Uttar Sauthkhali had no planning to mitigate cyclone disaster as well as disaster risks reduction. As the communities of two very villages were not well conscious about Community Based Disaster Management (CBDM), how it forms, how it works, who are the main actors of CBDM etc., they were very much vulnerable to cyclone disaster. For cyclone victims survival and adaptation, after cyclone Sidr and Aila the local Government agencies distributed dry foods, saline and drinking water among the cyclone affected people of Rāeỳndā and Uttar Sāuthkhālī. However, the half of the respondents of Uttar Sāuthkhālī opined that they found humanitarian aids after two to three days later. They also opined that NGOs volunteers first distributed dry foods and drinking water among them. However, the cyclone-affected communities of Rayenda opined that the local authorities distributed various aids at the first hour after disaster in both Sidr and Aila. After Sidr disaster, the local authorities conducted a survey for identifying actual affected people who had given various aids for their resilience. But the study found that 42.10 percent of the actual cyclone victims did not found any rehabiliting aids provided by different organizations. Several International and National NGOs directly involved their workers for aid distributing activities. Therefore, the rehabilitating aids that many foreign nations aided for the cyclone affected people of Rayenda and Uttar Sauthkhali was distributed with the collaboration of local Government authorities and some selected National NGOs. The organizational responses after the both cyclones did not give any aids to the cyclone affected people for increasing their permanent economic capability. Extensive relief and rehabilitation programme from the part of Government, NGO's and International Organization has been launched after the Sidr and Aial cyclones. But initially the programme suffered from poor transport and communication due to severe damages of roads and telecommunication system. Sufficient amount of relief material came into the locality from various government and non-government organizations. But the cyclone victims of Rāeỳndā and Uttar Sāuthkhālī opined about the deficiency of organizational aids distribution process. This study disclosed the fact that in Sidr and Aila organizations played a vital role during early, during and after disaster response: nearly two-third of the study villages opined that the organizational response was vital for early warning and after disaster rehabilitation but more than four-fifth of the both villages opined that during disaster time cyclone affected people helped each other to rescue life and property, saved life and helped vulnerable neighbors that means during disaster times community based response was higher than organizational response and rescue system. The immediate, subsistence and adaptive needs for the survival of the cyclone victims of Rayenda and Uttar Sauthkhali were not fulfilled moderately rather than partially. It was evident from the findings that one-third cyclone affected people of Rayenda and Uttar Sauthkhali heve been fulfilled their immediate, subsistence and adaptive needs and the rests were suffering a meiserable conditions in all stages of disaster. To reduce the damages from cyclone, counter measures are in practice. But the interrelationships of all the problems related to cyclone disaster mitigation are so complex that needs an integrated approach. Finally, the present study wrapped it job with a number of concluding remarks and policy measures for the development of coastal Bangladesh that would be useful for the policy makers and implementers.