Anger boils over as aid trickles into Bangladesh
Posted: Thursday, November 22, 2007 3:43 PM
By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
KALIKA BARI, Bangladesh -- We could hear the angry crowd well before the yellow, squat government building came into view.
It was under siege from 200-300 desperate cyclone survivors, jostling and shouting as they clambered for a share of the first aid to arrive in the village since a cyclone devastated Bangladesh six days ago.
"We need more, we need more," one man told NBC News. "One hundred per cent of the people in this village were affected by Cyclone Sidr. Everybody needs help. Everybody."
Inside the government building, a team of agitated aid workers handed out high-protein biscuits through a barred window, three boxes per family. Faces were pressed against the window; outstretched hands implored them for more food.
Police officers tried to keep the crowd at bay.
Within an hour all the biscuits had gone, but not the angry crowd, which remained demanding more help. The survivors taunted a police officer who urged them to return to what remained of their homes. An aid worker promised that more relief would arrive Friday.
A town uprooted
That was the scene we found in the village of Kalika Bari, where almost every house is damaged. Up to 20 people died here.
Corrugated tin roofs and uprooted trees still litter the roads and fields. Most crops were destroyed; the shredded stumps of banana trees line a narrow river.
Villagers recalled harrowing stories of escape. One fisherman showed us the injuries to his chest, lacerated after twelve hours clinging to a tree.
We also heard complaints about government storm warnings. Although these warnings did get 1 million people out of harm’s way, Jehangir, a local teacher, told us that many in this village did not know about the approaching storm.
"The people here are illiterate, they don’t have television or radio, they did not know the storm was coming," he said.
Jehangir also showed us the battered village school where he worked, its roof ripped off, walls and windows destroyed. Yet in what remained of one classroom a small group of children continued to study.
Weathering the storm
The main school building was sturdier. It had been deliberately built to serve as a storm shelter and 800 people huddled in there on the terrifying night the storm hit, as the 150 mile per hour winds battered their homes. The storm was the worst disaster to hit Bangladesh since 1991, when a cyclone killed 143,000 people.
Kalika Bari is in southwest Bangladesh, in one of the worst-hit areas. It took several days to clear the roads, but traffic is now moving, and a local ferry service should start Friday.
Relief workers insist that large amounts of aid are now flowing into Bangladesh, but from what we have seen on the ground here, it has yet to arrive in large quantities in shattered villages like Kalika Bari.
