LIFE AFTER SIDR(Silent wait at the graveside)

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Nov 19 (bdprem.com) – The unpredictable fury of the Nov 15 storm tore apart most of the Khaleque family in Kabirajpara near Barguna town. The mega-cyclone that ripped through southern districts took away 10 lives from the close-knit family in one tragic night of ferocious destruction. Seventy-year-old Abdul Khleque, the head of a 15-strong family, also lost his life in the storm. The family had lived off the sea by processing dry fish on a newly created sandbar called Ashar Char, five kilometers inland from the Bay. Although the family survived on the bounty of the sea, the capricious nature of the Bay launched an enormous wall of water over Ashar Char, leaving only a mound of mud to indicate that a house had stood there. Eighteen-year-old Bhulu, one of the only four members of the family known to have survived the storm surge, clung to a 15-foot Kaora tree for most of the night. Still visibly in shock, Bhulu sat bruised and bloodied in one corner of the yard in silence, when bdnews24.com correspondent Sanjay Dey found her. "A wall of water overturned my house like fire. We ran toward the jungle, and then I can't say what happened. It was water; water everywhere," Bhulu said. "I found myself afloat, clinging to a branch of the Kaora tree. The current swept me away three times, but somehow I managed to grab the tree again. I don't know where the others were." Khaleque's daughter-in-law Anwara was swept away by the current that night after trying to cling to the Kaora tree with her three-month-old daughter Dolly. Her husband Jalil, who had also managed to find a precarious grip on the tree, managed to grab their baby before Anwara lost her fight to the ferocious surge of water. Dolly, sitting in her father's lap, quietly watches over the 10 graves of her family members, not responding to anybody. Villagers throughout the region have similar tales of horror to tell. Normal life in Barguna has come to a standstill, while the dead are buried and the living grieves.