Day 6, Wednesday

The relief distributions are still going on and today the field team managed to distribute 400 food packs.

The older people are leading the relief efforts in some areas. These ordinary grandpas and grandmas have risen to this challenge in an extraordinary manner.

One grandfather of two small children, Jogendranath Halder (right) from the Pirojpur zilla (district), has started to rebuild his house which was severely damaged in cyclone SIDR. His only complaint is that with the lack of food and energy it is hard for him to fix the house properly.

Even though Jogendranath lost his right eyesight to typhoid, he used to work as a day laborer before the cyclone hit. Now with everything around him destroyed, work is nearly impossible to find. Jogendranath needs regular medication and better treatment for his gout pain and left eyesight, which is also gradually deteriorating day by day. I hope the DEC appeal has a good response so that we can help out.

Tutul from RIC, a health specialist from another organization and I went to the Health Cluster meeting this morning. Its exciting for me to see cluster meeting working in the field as in London we have been working with the UN on the cluster method of coordination in emergencies.

The government reported that Bagerhat, where our field team have been deployed for 10 days now, is the most affected district for cases of diarrhoea, eye and skin infections and TB. They highlighted the issue of poor/inadequate coordination in the health sector at all levels, Government Offices, NGOs and INGOs and donors.

I asked the panel and agencies to what extent the government health service, INGOs and NGOs were disaggregating data by age and gender in their needs assessments and catering for the specific needs of older people.

Dr Waleed Ikram from IMC suggested that the government should look at providing a simple format/process for disease early warning which includes data disaggregation by age and gender as an essential component (in DRR) because everyone knows that in reality the elderly and young children are often the hardest hit by disaster and prone to disease.

It’s 9pm now and as I struggle to answer all the emails from London, I’m getting vibes from London that the DEC appeal won’t raise as much money as hoped for so we will need to come up with a Plan B… There was a plane full of relief goods supposed to arrive tonight… But like always it will be late and now land at midnight, so no sleep for us before the field trip tomorrow... But hey with no communications and no accommodation in the field I hope I can sleep while traveling!




Coming Soon! Read what happens when the plane of relief goods finally lands!

Visit http://www.helpage.org/ for more on the cyclone in Bangladesh

Day 4, Monday

Situation in the field

Tofazzel Hossain Monjul, who normally works on the Realising the Rights of Older People programme and is also RIC’s treasurer returned from the field (Pirojpur) on Sunday. Monjul said that it was hard to differentiate the needs of older people from the general population due largely to the lack of disaggregated data at local authority level. However, older people have consistently featured in media stories, which have emphasized their vulnerability.

He reports that the government is sending rice to some areas but it is not distributing non-food items like clothing, cooking utensils etc. RIC and some smaller local NGOs are providing some clothes and other non-food items and new teams are arriving in the area every day.

Water, Sanitation and Housing
Days after the cyclone there are still potable water shortages as there is not enough coverage. The UK Disasters Emergency Committee is saying that the task of rebuilding all the houses lost to the cyclone is greater than rebuilding Birmingham… but given that more than half a million houses have been completely wiped out and another million affected severely I would say it is more like rebuilding Birmingham and Manchester.

Coordination
A bridge collapsed today, killing one person and injuring others, when crowds surged forward for a relief distribution. Union officials have lists but people don’t trust them. Some NGOs are going their own way and doing their own thing. Likewise with private companies who are not engaging with the local authorities or INGOS/NGOs.

In contrast RIC is working well with CARE International and UNDP. A UNDP team member visited RIC’s field team in order to assess them for the next round of distributions.

Infrastructure
It is reported that the electricity supply will take one month(!) to rehabilitate. Back home a month without electricity would have caused a scandal but till now the world doesn’t seem to be shocked by the devastation here.

Health
There is little access to health generally in these areas. Diarrhoea outbreaks have been reported and some medical teams are giving out public health messages and simple medicines.

Day 1, Friday

Darkness gives way to dawn… It’s three in the morning as we land at the Zia International Airport in Dhaka. Thankfully, there is electricity here but reports coming in have suggested that most of Dhaka is having to do without it. The infrastructure of the city of 11 million is still recovering from the battering it took just a few days before.

I arrived at the hotel in Dhaka at 4 in the morning, grabbed a few hours’ sleep then started work right away with a meeting from 9.30 onwards. By the time I arrived, our partner in Bangladesh, the Resource Integration Centre (RIC) had already been responding to the disaster. Within four days of the cyclone they had distributed dry food rations to over 2,000 families. I started by attending briefings from Haseeb Khan, the Executive Director and Razeeb Tutul, the Programme Manager of RIC, who introduced me to their staff team.

Based on initial assessments RIC has identified 65,000 older people and their families who are in need of assistance to meet their basic needs (health, food, water and shelter) and support to rebuild their businesses and lives following the devastation. It will be a real challenge to raise enough money to help these vulnerable older people. To increase coordination and make our response more effective we are planning to partner with other organisations.

Already there are reports of outbreaks of diarrhoea and other health concerns in the national newspapers today.

Even though the field team has been working flat out, with very little sleep, packaging relief items into boxes all night and distributing them in the day, their commitment to our mission is still as strong as ever.

RIC and HelpAge International will be integrating disaster risk reduction with our response and hopefully in the future this will reduce the impact of such disasters. We are now also preparing for a visit by a photographer who will spend a few days visiting project areas in order to collect photos and stories so that we can get word of this tremendous tragedy out to the world.