From crisis to resilience: A call for action

I was in Chittagong, Bangladesh, the day the floods began. The next morning, I drove to my ancestral village, determined to support the relief efforts. Floods were a familiar disaster in my childhood. Growing up in the 90s, I remember schools doubling as shelters, dry food distributed in jute bags and livestock herded to higher ground. But this flood was different. 

The floods I’d known had been coastal events. Last month, floods tore through eastern Bangladesh—an area untouched by such a catastrophe for over 30 years. People were lost, unsure where to go. Relief workers scrambled to provide basic aid—dry food, oral saline and water purification tablets. The scene on the ground was devastating: Homes submerged, trucks overturned, highways impassable. Families waded through water, carrying whatever belongings they could gather and livestock, desperately seeking shelter. 

Weeks later, the waters remain. My ancestral home still waits for the floodwaters to recede. And the harsh truth is, this disaster was not just a result of nature—it was the consequence of our choices. We prioritised building roads over maintaining our indigenous waterways. The canals and wetlands that once managed floods were filled in, paved over, or built upon. When disaster struck, the water had nowhere to go.