Disaster Management and Cyclone Warning System in Bangladesh

Abstract

Due to its geographical position, Bangladesh is one of the most disaster prone countries in the world. Natural hazards, i.e. cyclones, storm surges and floods extract heavy tolls on human lives and animals. Tremendous property damages, and the total disruption of development activities of the country occur almost every year. With about 120 million people living within 144000 km² of land, Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. It is estimated that a total 775 303 people died in the coastal and offshore islands of Bangladesh within the last 222 years (1775–1997) due to cyclone and storm surges alone. The main causes of these huge casualties were:

• 1. A weak cyclone warning and weather forecasting system,

• 2. false alarm with no cyclone/storm event, despite of high warning signals,

• 3. no disaster awareness programmes were implemented in advance.

There are about 15.0 million people living in the vulnerable areas, covering 21 000 km² of coastal and offshore islands of Bangladesh which comprise 14.8% of the land of the country. Although 1.3 million are accommodated in a total of 1 350 cyclone shelters in these areas, and a further 2.3 million people can be accommodated in school and office buildings, 11.0 million people (about 73.3%) are still unsafe. The Government of Bangladesh has given emphasis and priority to developing of the weather forecasting system using satellite imageries and computer methods. So, now cyclone warning signal can be given and disseminated to the community/vulnerable people as early as possible, by radio, television and information media at frequent interval during the event of a cyclone strike. Bangladesh has already established and set up a Disaster Management Bureau to coordinate disaster management through national to local level to pursue the objectives of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, IDNDR (1990–2000) to develop disaster awareness. One cyclone event was already successfully predicted on May 19th, 1997, which had a similar intensity to the May 25th, 1985 cyclone (where 11 069 people died on that day), but this time only 127 people died due to the early warning system and taking proper precautionary measures. In this article, disaster management and the development of a cyclone warning system in Bangladesh are discussed.