Bangladesh monsoon: Acting lessons protect children from real risks

23 May 2018 |

In a community centre in Tansimorkhola, at the southern end of the giant camp that is home to almost 800,000 people who fled Myanmar for Bangladesh, some impressive acting is going on. Staff and volunteers from a Bangladesh Red Crescent Society and Danish Red Cross psychosocial programme are putting local community volunteers through a series of likely scenarios for both monsoon and cyclone season.

In Pictures – Safe water for people most at risk of monsoon floods

22 May 2018 |

Out in the blazing heat and humidity of Cox’s Bazar camps, it is a race against time for final pre-monsoon preparations to be made. The storm clouds are coming.

In pictures — Families race to shore up shelters before monsoon hits Bangladesh

15 May 2018 |

Around 671,000 people who fled violence in Myanmar in August 2017 are now living in camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and Bangladesh Red Crescent Society (BDRCS) are working together every day to improve shelter conditions for 30,000 people living in vulnerable areas in the camps.

Sichuan Earthquake: Lessons Learned We Owe to Loved Ones Lost

14 May 2018 |

Beyond all the challenges and hard work of disaster response lies learning lessons to keep people safer in future.

Ten years after the massive 8.0 earthquake in Sichuan province in western China, collapsed buildings and rubble are protected in the ancient town of Anren in Dayi county. Together, they frame a sculpture of a huge jagged clock face inscribed with the date and time of the disaster that struck the province on 12 May 2008. The Wenchuan earthquake that killed more than 87,000 people and left 5 million homeless, destroyed all in its path.

“Window of opportunity is closing” – final plea for funds as monsoon season looms over Cox’s Bazar

11 May 2018 |

Cox’s Bazar/Geneva, 11 May 2018 – The window of opportunity to protect people in Cox’s Bazar against floods and landslides is rapidly closing. Pre-monsoon rains are already causing havoc in camps for people displaced from Rakhine State in neighbouring Myanmar. The heavy rains normally start at the end of May, with the rainy season continuing through to September. Steve McAndrew, the head of operations for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Cox’s Bazar said: “It is no longer possible to provide everyone in the camps with adequate shelter before the rains really set in. Instead, we are focusing on what we can do to protect those most vulnerable to floods and landslides. “We are shoring up essential services like water and sanitation, and we are preparing to launch multiple emergency response operations over the coming months. We are prepositioning supplies, and we are expanding volunteer outreach into the furthest corners of the camps,” said McAndrew. Of the 785,000 people living in the camps around Cox’s Bazar, an estimated 200,000 are believed to be at risk of floods and landslides. This includes 25,000 living in extremely high-risk areas – on steep and denuded hill sides that are likely to wash away in the first sustained downpour. With only weeks now remaining before the beginning of the rainy season, IFRC is issuing an urgent plea...

Country: Asia Pacific