Bangladesh faces a multi-billion-dollar battle to get cyclone survivors back on their feet and repair damaged infrastructure after Cyclone Sidr, officials say one month on from the disaster.
"We have successfully faced the early challenge. Immediate food and relief have reached every affected area. And we have also prevented any early health crisis," food and disaster management ministry secretary Ayub Mia said. "Now the real challenge is to get millions of people back to normal life and provide them jobs so that they can stand up on their own," he said.
Sidr hit the Bangladesh coast on November 15, leaving a trail of devastation in southern districts. At least 3,300 people were killed and 800 more are still missing presumed dead. In the worst-hit places, the cyclone, combined with a tidal surge, wiped out whole villages, as well as roads, livestock and crops. An estimated half-a-million homes were destroyed.
Aid agencies and the government agree that emergency relief has now reached every affected village but say the survivors need urgent help to become economically independent. "The cyclone casualties may be less than everyone feared. But the destruction was worse than any other cyclone in the past," said Emamul Haq, spokesman of the World Food Programme (WFP), which has undertaken a six-month feeding programme for 2.2-million affected people.
"It has ruined the lives of millions of people. The toughest job now is to rebuild the social assets of these people. It is a huge task for a poor country like Bangladesh," he said. Aminul Islam Bhuiyan, secretary of the government's external relations division, which deals with foreign donors, said billions of dollars in aid would be required.
"We have sought 2.2-billion dollars from the donors for long-term rehabilitation of the cyclone victims and also to protect people from any future cyclone and tidal surge," he said. That was at least 1.2 billion dollars more than requested by the head of the interim government of Fakhruddin Ahmed last week. "Our primary focus is now to rebuild the livelihood of the millions of people affected by the cyclone and rebuild the infrastructure," the government secretary said.
"We will build some 2,000 cyclone shelters, reconstruct hundreds of miles of roads and embankments so that they can protect crops and houses, reforest the coastline and re-build damaged schools and colleges.
"These will create much-needed jobs in the cyclone hit areas," he said, adding that the task was likely to take at least two to three years. The UN has said more than 8.5-million people were affected by the storm, about 1.5 million more than originally thought.
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