Dhaka, Sept. 25 -- It is very worrying that Faidpur's Padma and Madhumati rivers are swallowing farmlands and houses, leaving hundreds of villagers in the relevant areas in hardships and panic. According to a report in this newspaper yesterday, the homeless people in the region who had earlier received houses under the government's Ashrayan project are now afraid of losing their houses again due to river erosion.

River erosion, the natural consequence of overflowing of rivers, wreaks havoc in Bangladesh each year washing away everything including the straw huts as well as concrete structures, not to mention the agricultural lands and crops. At present, 6,000 hectares of land is lost due to erosion. It is only natural that the people who ...