The night that shattered Firoza’s life

27 November 2007

Firoza slowly shoulders the white sack. It’s heavy for her. At the age of 70, she has lost the strength she once had. When Cyclone Sidr shattered her wooden house in Bangladesh, it also shattered what remained of her life.

Firoza with the sack full of relief items that she received from CARE.
Firoza with the sack full of relief items that she received from CARE.
© CARE/2007

“My son died”, Firoza explains. “He was  my only support.” Firoza’s son drowned when the ferry he was on sunk in the river during the storm. “My grandson and my nephew are dead too,”

She tries again to lift the sack full of relief items that she has just received from CARE. It is filled with a plastic sheet, a rope, matches and candles, all the material she needs to build a basic shelter so that she can survive the next few weeks.

“I sleep under the open sky now, on the debris that used to be my house,” she explains. She has nowhere else to go.

In Bangladesh, natural disasters are part of daily life. Floods, cyclones, droughts and erosion. Within the past 30 years more than 170 natural disasters have hit the Asian state. But Cyclone Sidr was the strongest storm to ravage the country since 1991.

Firoza heard the warnings over a microphone that spread the message through her village. She ran to the shelter to seek refugee. But after some hours of heavy rain even the shelter began to come apart.

“I was scared and tried to hide under a tree,” she says,” But then the tree was uprooted. and fell down” Finally she found refuge in a neighbor’s house. The next day she searched for her son. But she never found him. “He used to work for an insurance company and send me money every week. But now I have no one to support me,” she says. Her husband died years ago during a powerful flood that devastated the area. “I can only pray that I will survive.”

Her four daughters and their families have lost their homes as well. “They are to poor to help me,” Firoza looks away and tears run down her cheek. They have not only lost their homes, but their rice harvest. The rice paddies, that they depend on for food, were just about to be harvested.

CARE, together with its local partner organization Resource Integration Centre has delivered food and essential items to build rudimentary shelters to more than 8,000 families. Thousands more will follow in the coming week. “We need houses as well as better cyclone shelters,” says Firoza. She also needs a better future and with that a new source of income for herself and for her family.