Rivers are rapidly eroding houses, schools, and farmlands in Kurigram, Lalmonirhat and several other districts. Many people are losing their homes and belongings in a matter of hours. As flood waters are receding in the two districts, the Brahmaputra, the Teesta, the Dharla, the Dudhkumar and the Gangadhar are eroding the banks in at least 60 places.

At least 280 homes, three schools and a college have been washed away in Kurigram while in Lalmonirhat, at least 20 homesteads have disappeared into the rivers over the past week. Besides, vast farmlands and over 500 homesteads are in immediate threat of being wiped out. In Lalmonirhat, the BWDB said they were putting sandbags on the banks to curb erosion while relief and rehabilitation officers said they were preparing a list of the affected people. In Tangail, locals said the Jamuna washed away over 100 houses in the Chituliapara and Patnipara areas of Bhuapur. The villagers

demonstrated blocking roads for effective measures to stop the erosion. In Sirajganj, the Jamuna washed away a major chunk of an embankment in Kazipur upazila. Several government facilities may get eroded unless the sandbags and concrete blocks stop erosion in Kazipur. The Surma and the Kushiyara are eroding properties in Sylhet, Moulvibazar, Sunamganj and Habiganj.

In yesteryears, we saw the government response to erosion was largely ad-hoc basis and temporary – sandbags thrown against already crumbling land, for example, rather than forward-looking planning to better adapt to the waterways. We can say the Water Development Board must build dams to protect the lives and livelihood of millions not for swelling the account of a section of officials. Besides, lifting sands from riverbeds has the effect of river erosion and washing away strongly-built dams and dykes. The government stops its men from lifting sands and stones from the rivers, and embankment protection works will be useless.