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Floods: the bad news & the good news
Bangladeshi joy at fish bonanza
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Flooding in Bangladesh has brought misery to millions, but for a group of villagers in southern Chandpur district it has proved something of a bonanza.
Fish farms have overflowed, allowing locals to catch nutritious delicacies normally way beyond their budget.
"We are catching fish round the clock. It's like a festival," one resident, Alam Palash, told AFP news agency.
"It is so easy to catch the escaped fish that on Sunday I caught around 40kg with my bare hands." |
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For many people in Chandpur, fish is now on the menu |
The prospect of free fish for all was so exciting that within a matter of hours crowds were descending around flooded streams and ponds, locals say.
Some people could barely carry their catch home.
Important protein
Although expensive in a country where millions of people earn less than a dollar a day, fish is eaten regularly in Bangladesh and is an important source of protein.
Officials say that so many fish escaped in Chandpur that many were left to rot on dry land once flood waters started to recede.
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They say that it is important their carcasses are removed, because they could soon become a health hazard.
Police have been put on alert to try and re-capture some of the escaped fish, so that they can be returned to the 13,000 fish farms in the Chandpur area.
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Owners of the farms put estimated losses at millions of dollars.
It is not just fish farmers who have been hard hit in the floods.
Aid agencies say that millions of dollars worth of rice crops have also been lost in the worst flooding the country has experienced since 1998.
Bangladeshi villagers delighted as floods bring fish galore
Flooding in southern Bangladesh has sent many thousands of fish spilling into local waterways bringing heavy losses for fishery owners -- but a bonanza for many.
"We are catching fish round the clock. It's like a festival here," Alam Palash, a resident of the southern Chandpur district, told AFP Monday.
Crowds were descending on local streams and ponds, he said, with refrigerators full to the point of bursting.
"It's so easy to catch the escaped fishes that yesterday I caught around 40 kilograms (110 pounds) of fish with my bare hands," he added.
In some places, there were so many stray fish that thousands were being left to rot, creating a health hazard, deputy district administrator Taherul Islam said.
"We are trying to stop people from catching those fish and police have even confiscated some fishing nets. But it's very difficult to save all those fish -- indeed it's a very tough situation," he said.
The district has around 13,000 fish farms, most of which have lost stock because of heavy rain over the past few days, said Kaium Talukdar of the Chandpur fisheries department.
"All the fish farms were due to harvest in two months and now because of the flooding all those fish have spread all over the district," Talukdar said.
Fish farmers were expected to suffer losses of around 3.5 million dollars, he said.
Bangladesh experienced its heaviest flooding since 1998 this July and August with more than 700 people killed.
Last week the worst monsoon rain in half a century brought the capital Dhaka to a standstill and caused flash floods in other parts of the country.
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