RANGPUR, Jan 31, 2021 (BSS) – Country’s northern districts are witnessing abnormal weather with sharp falls of temperatures in the morning and rise again in the afternoon almost daily with a bit exception in the on-going winter season .
Experts and environmentalists said such behavioural change in the weather has been taking paces due to adverse impacts of climate change and the ultimate consequences are still erratic.
Senior Coordinator (Agriculture and Environment) of RDRS Bangladesh Mamunur Rashid said the weather in this region continued to behave peculiarly due to climate change causing sufferings to people and uncertainty to every sector, including agriculture.
Due to climate change, the unpleasant temperature of the day and night has been changed significantly slow over the years creating peculiarity in the climatic pattern and causing either extreme cold or extreme hot weather in the region.
“Scientists have innovated flood-, drought- and saline- tolerant crops to keep agriculture production increasing despite changing climate. But, now time knocks the door to even innovate cold-tolerant varieties of crops for survival of the human being,” he said.
Noted Agriculturist Dr. Md. Abdul Mazid, who got the Independence Award 2018 (food security), told BSS that the present weather trend behaves peculiarly with unpredictability due to climate change.
Director of the Riverine People and Associate Professor of Begum Rokeya University Dr. Tuhin Wadud said the northern region is experiencing a peculiar climatic pattern resulted from adverse impacts of the changing climate.
Locals said chilling cold today grasped the northern region since early morning along with thick layers of fog causing intolerable sufferings to them followed by significant improvement again with appearance of the sun in the afternoon.
According to Met Office sources, the mercury level dropped to the lowest 5.5 degrees Celsius at Rajarhat monitoring point in Kurigram at 6 am today.
The minimum temperatures recorded at 6 am today were 7.2 degrees Celsius at Rangpur, 6.5 degrees at Syedpur, 7.3 degrees at Dinajpur, 7.5 degrees at Tentulia and 7 degrees Celsius at Dimla points in the northern region.
Like in the previous days, the sun was overcast with fogs amid blowing wind from the north-western directions causing bone-chilling cold and exposing the poorer and elderly people and minor children to extreme miseries till noon.
Doctors said they continued to treat higher number of people with cough, fever, breathing distress and other cold and climate change related diseases during the past couple of weeks and elderly men and women and babies were the worst sufferers.
Rangpur Divisional Director (Health) Dr. Md. Ahad Ali said stock of medicines was adequate and steps were taken at the government-run health facilities in districts and upazilas to treat the cold-related patients.
The district administrations, NGOs, public and private bodies, business and professional bodies and banks have further intensified distribution of warm clothes among cold-hit people.
Divisional Commissioner Abdul Wahhab Bhuiyan said four lakh pieces of blankets in addition to other warm clothes have already been distributed among cold-stricken people in Rangpur division.
The blankets were allocated from the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund and purchased with about TK four crore allocated by the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief for distribution in Rangpur division.
According to reports reaching from remote areas said sufferings of thousands of people living in riverine char areas of Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Gaibandha, Rangpur and Nilphamari districts on the Brahmaputra basin further mounted today.