Callum Scott

Comment on the causes and consequences of one costal ood that you have studied. April 1991 Bangladesh was hit by a cyclone causing the loss of 140000 lives, half of which were children. The Chittagong area was worst hit being directly in the path of the storm along the middle east coast of Bangladesh. Despite the construction of storm shelters following the 1970 cyclone many still lost their lives due to the cyclone striking striking with only a few hours of warning and many not going to the shelters due to either a disbelief in the size of the storm or a lack of knowledge as to the whereabouts of the shelters. Bangladesh is made almost entirely of low lying land with a very high density of river channels in the delta. The low lying land and river systems gave little resistance to the 6 meter storm surge allowing it to move far inland. This in combination with the high tide is one of the main reasons for the large extent of the damage. Much of the mangrove forests that would have acted as a buffer zone for the storm surge were deforested for the timber and for space for agriculture, without the buffer zone the waters could more inland unimpeded and a larger volume of water was able to move inland than if the mangroves had been present. Bangladesh has a high population density, often a thousand people per square kilometer. This is another cause of the high death toll. With so many people living in the coastal margin to work the fertile soils many people were living in the areas hit. The housing that Bangladeshis live in in these areas is of weak construction and was easily washed away by the ood waters taking the residents with it. Many of the casualties were children, 50%. This is the same percentage as the percentage of the population that is of that age. The many children are needed because of a high death rate amongst children and they are needed to work the land. The ood event had many long and sort term consequences on the people of Bangladesh. Many people were killed in the ood; 138000, 50% of which were children 25% women, 15% elderly and 10% men. The ood caused 1.5 billion dollars worth of damage, which whilst much less than the damage cased by hurricane Katrina in the Florida is a sizable amount for a less developed country. The monetary worth of the damage is likely to be less because there is less infrastructure in coastal bangladesh than in America and hence there was less to damage. Large swaths of agricultural land was destroyed and crops washed away, the pools in which prawns were farmed were also destroyed by the ooding. Long term consequences of the ood stemmed from the short term impacts. The ooding washed away much of the topsoil in the farmland as well as the crops, that that was left was salinated meaning crops could not be grown on that land. The destruction of the farmland left families with no income and no food to eat after the event. Diseases spread after the ood causing secondary deaths amongst the population. 70% of people in the coastal margin were injured in the ood, making it harder for the people to re-build after the ood and meaning less people were able to work the land and help rebuild after the ood prolonging recovery. The consequences of the ood event are directly linked to the physical factors. The low lying land and deforestation allowed the ood waters further inland than they would have in a area that still had its natural buffer zone. The mangroves were deforested because of the growing population to give re wood and land to farm on, this led to the higher population densities in the areas hit and consequently the high death toll.