By IANS
Dhaka : For the many thousands in southern Bangladesh’s villages, this was one warning they didn’t take seriously. And it proved fatal as Cyclone Sidr hit with ferocity, sweeping away an estimated 10,000 people and leaving a trail of destruction.
It is a common story told through the cries of people left to gather the rubble of their lives in the devastated coastal region. The disaster warning two days before the cyclone struck was no wolf cry.
Villagers were unwilling to leave their homes and cattle behind, because they thought the alarm was just another false one.
“They told us we would die when the tsunami was supposed to hit a couple of years ago. We all rushed to the centre without thinking twice. But nothing happened and we returned to find our houses looted,” Anwara Khatun of Patharghata in Barguna, the worst affected district, was quoted as saying by the Daily Star.
But this time no one came to loot. Instead, her mother, a niece and a nephew were killed by the fearsome waves.
“We thought it would be the same this time. But when our houses started to shake and the tidal wave came into our homes, we took all we could and made a dash for the shelter. It was too late,” she said.
When Bangladesh Navy personnel warned the inhabitants of the marshy land and offshore islands, little notice was taken of the warning.
An NGO worker engaged in disseminating the disaster warning in a coastal village said: “Every time we came here to build awareness, the villagers and the char residents were indifferent. They thought there had been too many false alarms.”
A large section of the dead were swept away by the high waves when they were making a desperate bid to make it to the cyclone centre. The bid proved to be the last for many.
Many heeded the warning, but too late. They left homes before the arrival of the tidal wave, but were trapped under the trees uprooted by the ferocious wind.
The government and NGOs have built many cyclone shelters. But, in many cases, they proved too few and too far apart.