Govt mulls to construct mega dyke along coast: Enamur

State minister for disaster management and relief Md Enamur(M) Rahman addresses a roundtable titled ‘Grisly 12 November: Sustainable Coastal Thinking,’ jointly organised by Coast Foundation and EduAid at the National Press Club, Dhaka on Tuesday. Photo: PID
State minister for disaster management and relief Md Enamur(M) Rahman addresses a roundtable titled ‘Grisly 12 November: Sustainable Coastal Thinking,’ jointly organised by Coast Foundation and EduAid at the National Press Club, Dhaka on Tuesday. Photo: PID

State minister for disaster management and relief Md Enamur Rahman on Tuesday said the government is planning to construct a mega embankment along the coast to protect people from natural calamities, reports UNB.

“We’ve devised a plan to cover our 710-km coastal area with RCC mouldings. If we can do this, it’ll protect our coastal belt from not only cyclones, but also from the sea level rise,” he said.

The state minister made the remarks at a roundtable titled ‘Grisly 12 November: Sustainable Coastal Thinking’ jointly organised by Coast Foundation and EduAid at the National Press Club.

He said the government has constructed 11,604 disaster-resilient houses for the homeless people and the construction of 23,000 more is underway. “We’ve a plan to build 300,000 such homes.”

Enamur said a total of 2,108,758 coastal residents were evacuated to some 5,788 cyclone shelters before cyclonic storm Bulbul lashed the country early Sunday. “In Bangladesh's history, we took highest number of people to the shelter centres this time,” he said.

The state minister further said the government is planning to construct climate-resilient structures with own funds like the Padma Bridge.

He said the disaster management and relief ministry does not want to keep its activities limited only to relief distribution. “We want to create a disaster-tolerant state... we don’t want any kind of disaster to cause death in the country.”

Earlier, Coast Foundation coordinator M Amirul Haque Pervez put forward a set of demands, including the announcement of 12 November as the ‘Coast Day’.