Twenty-five years later, the memory of that boat trip is as clear as ever. The journey from Cox’s Bazar town to Pekua upazila seemed never-ending as the nouka navigated the calm water, now littered with bodies.
Golam closes his eyes. After a moment he looks up,
“It was the 29th April 1991; I lost three members of my family that day.”
Golam was working in Cox’s Bazar when super cyclonic storm Gorky traversed the Bay of Bengal and made land fall in Chittagong Division, south-east Bangladesh. This was one of the most severe cyclones ever to hit Bangladesh, causing widespread damage and loss of life. Although he was safe in the town, Golam’s family was living in a coastal village in Pekua upazila. He wasted no time in returning to them, armed with as much dry food as he could carry.
He recalls the sights along the way, “There were hardly any houses left; even the trees had been uprooted. The water was like poison.”
When he reached home, he found his parents perched on the roof of their house - the safest place they could find. Other members of the family had not been as fortunate.
As many as 139,000 people lost their lives as a result of cyclone Gorky, with many thousands more left injured or homeless.
In addition to the deaths and injuries that occur as a direct result of such disasters, cyclones have a wider impact on public health. Lack of access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation following the storm can increase the incidence of infections such as diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, eye infections and skin diseases, leading to further morbidity.
Preparing for the next disaster
Today, Golam manages the stock room at the Civil Surgeon’s Office, Cox’s Bazar, which houses medical supplies for the district, including emergency health kits provided by WHO. These kits are designed to meet the primary healthcare needs of a population facing an emergency or in the aftermath of a natural disaster. The kits consist of essential medicines and medical devices, including antibiotics, pain killers, medications for children, sterilisation sets and supplies to treat light-to-moderate injuries. A complete kit caters for 10,000 people, with enough provisions to last for three months; they are pre-placed in strategic locations, from where they can easily be distributed in the event of an emergency in the area. The kits can both replenish drugs and supplies lost during the emergency and cater for the increased number of patients seeking care following the disaster.
During emergency situations, WHO field staff are on hand to coordinate and provide any necessary medical or technical support to local officials and medical teams on the ground. WHO also works to increase surveillance activities so that any disease outbreaks can be detected and responded to as early as possible.
Bangladesh has learned from earlier disasters, including cyclone Gorky, by putting early warning signals that are widely communicated in place, building cyclone shelters and raising community awareness, among other interventions. These have all helped to minimise injuries and loss of life from subsequent natural disasters. Nevertheless, the threat of cyclones and tidal surges remains ever present because of Bangladesh’s low lying land and location on the world’s largest river delta. Floods are an annual occurrence and cyclones have struck time and time again since Gorky in 1991, most recently with cyclone Roanu sweeping through in May 2016 and claiming 27 lives.
Soon after Roanu passed, members of the outbreak and emergency health unit of WHO Bangladesh visited parts of two of the affected districts, Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar, to assess the damage and impact of the cyclone on health and health infrastructure. The team found that all health facilities they visited were functioning well. This can, in part, be attributed to good planning.
In 2015, WHO Bangladesh, along with the government and partners, devised an emergency preparedness and response plan for Chittagong division, based on the risks it faces. In the case of Roanu, the government and partners took all necessary steps in line with the plan. With 48 hours to prepare before the storm struck, medical teams were mobilised and deployed, emergency drug stocks were checked and control rooms opened at local health facilities. Half of the emergency health kits were distributed from the divisional depot to the affected districts before the cyclone made land fall.
“The emergency preparedness and response plan has helped the government and all our partners including NGO’s, donors and other actors, to prepare ourselves to manage the post-cyclone situation in the coastal regions of Chittagong division,” said Dr Alauddin Majumdar, Director (Health) for Chittagong Division. He added “I am hopeful that this plan will help us to manage all kinds of disasters in the future.”
