A View From Barisal

Bangladesh authorities are coordinating a large portion of their cyclone relief efforts at the Barisal airfield. The Barisal region is located south of Dhaka, and its southernmost districts were among the hardest hit by Cyclone Sidr. The airfield at Barisal was a logical place to stage aerial relief efforts. The Bangladesh government and military have set up a relief coordination center at the airfield, and the U.S. government has plugged into that operation to stage the drop-off and pick-up of relief supplies.

The U.S. Marines have established a Civil-Military Operations Center (CMOC) at Barisal, and I am part of an Embassy Liaison Office attached to the CMOC. Thanks to combined U.S. – Bangladesh efforts, we are now delivering literally tons of relief materials to cyclone victims. Here’s how it works:

C-130 cargo planes from the U.S. Marines Corps, the U.S. Air Force and the Bangladesh Air Force deliver supplies from Dhaka to Barisal. U.S. Navy and Marine helicopters fly up to Barisal from the U.S.S. Keersarge in the Bay of Bengal. The helicopters pick up the supplies dropped off by the C-130s and deliver the supplies to remote areas of southern Bangladesh that cannot easily be reached by road. In fact, according to an article in a Dhaka newspaper yesterday, more than 1500 km of roads in Barisal will require repair following the cyclone.

While Barisal is a good airfield that is close to the disaster area, it is not big. The Marines and members of the Bangladesh Army running operations at Barisal have quite a challenge to move as many aircraft has possible in and out of Barisal, without endangering people or machinery. They are doing an amazing job of synchronizing some really big planes and helicopters. This afternoon, for example, we had four CH46 helicopters on the apron of the airfield. Privates from the Bangladesh Army, as well as U.S. Marines, were running with bags of clothing and boxes of wheat, rice and sugar and putting the supplies on the helicopters. At the same time, a U.S. C-130 was on the runway, and our U.S. ground crew was off-loading more boxes of food with a forklift. It was noisy and windy, but at the same time exhilarating, to see how well all this was working and to know that we are helping people too.

Heather V. (Department of State Employee)