With its course changed by three massive encroachments, the river is now directly hitting the unprotected shore of Basila with a strong current, threatening to wash away the entire island.

Hundreds of local people gathered on the bank of the river yesterday and pointed at three brick kilns built in the middle of the river that have changed the water course. They demanded immediate removal of the encroachments to save their '250-year old' village from erosion.

The angry local enforced an instant indefinite hartal on the Buriganga and stopped all vessels from plying the river.

"Officials from the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) and the district administration visited the place last year and promised to remove the brick kilns. But this has not happened," said Faruk Sardar, a victim of the erosion who has lost his one-storey house to the gushing river.

On the Basila Uttarmura, where the erosion is at its worst, Buriganga has been visibly shrunk by the three brick kilns. The river was diverted at the start of the current monsoon season as the owners of the brick kilns built a dyke by dumping bricks in the river.

According to the locals, the owners of the brick kilns built the dyke to protect their own installations as sand traders started scooping up sand from the river bed using small dredgers.

As the indiscriminate and unplanned sand lifting increased the depth of the river by about 100 feet, the river shores were under threat of collapse, prompting the brick kiln owners to build the dyke.

"As soon as the dyke was built, the river changed its course and we became its prime targets," said Nazir Hossain, who lost six rooms of his house and was trying to retrieve his possession from the remains.

"On Friday we were alarmed when a four-storey building slightly tilted towards the river. By Monday, several houses were gone into the river," said Nazir.

"We have been living in Basila for generations and never witnessed anything like this," said Faruk Sardar, a local.

BOOMERANGED
The 1 km-long Basila Road built without adequate water passages has boomeranged on the locality with sudden erosion devouring houses in Basila of Mohammadpur.

Engineers of the Roads and Highways say any road in Bangladesh running from east to west must have several culverts to let the floodwater that always flows in a southerly direction pass through it.

But the Basila Road through the middle of a 20 square kilometre flood plains has only one culvert, and that too is hardly 10 feet in width. As a result the overflowing river Buriganga creates huge water pressure and constantly pummels Basila, an area surrounded by Buriganga on the west and the flood plains on the other sides.

Basila Road that stretches from Mohammadpur embankment to Basila, was built at a cost of Tk 20crore a year ago with one built-in culvert.

"Basila Road blocks water from adjoining 20 square kilometres of flood plains. Due to the obstruction, the water rolls back to the river creating even stronger current there," said a Roads and Highways engineer requesting anonymity.

"Basila road immediately needs at least six more culverts to make sure water from the flood plains flows freely," he said.

Besides, flood plains that are increasingly filled up by at least 10 real estate developers, cause heavy swells in the river. Hundreds of acres of flood plains in the area have already been filled up by the developers.

"You've got to allow the water enough space to pass otherwise it will hit wherever it can," said Tajul Islam, a local resident.