Dipankar Roy

The once mighty Soilmari river, flowing through Khulna’s Batiaghata and Dumuria upazilas, is in dire need of excavation.

The once-thriving Khulna Textile Mills Limited, now a neglected relic of the past, has remained abandoned for nearly 31 years. Established in 1931 as the Acharya Prafulla Chandra Cotton Mill, the mill sits on 25.63 acres of land in the heart of Khulna city.

The homestead of Rahman Sheikh, a farmer of Gutudia village in Khulna’s Dumuria upazila, has been submerged for the past 45 days.

Electronic waste, or e-waste, is rapidly becoming a menace for Khulna city dwellers due to Khulna City Corporation’s lack of facilities to manage this type of waste.

Around 6,200 farmers across nine upazilas of Khulna have been cultivating off-season watermelon on approximately 919 hectares of land in fish farms.

The Khulna City Corporation’s waste disposal project is facing significant delays, with only half of the work completed despite being eight months past its initial deadline.

Incessant rain over the past three days has caused significant damage to fish farms across Khulna, particularly impacting shrimp farmers during their harvest season.

Indiscriminate collection of snails from croplands and swamp areas has raised alarms in Khulna.

Fifty-six houses under an Ashrayan project in Dumuria upazila, Khulna, have been under knee-deep water for the past two months due to flooding.

Continuous rainfall over the past four days has caused widespread flooding across new areas of Khulna, inflicting severe damage to vast tracts of Aman paddy and vegetable crops.

Khulna City Corporation has spent Tk 523 crore in the last six years on a project aimed at alleviating the city’s waterlogging problems.

Delay in renovation of a road connecting Khulna University of Engineering and Technology and several other institutions has resulted in immense sufferings to the city residents.

Patients at Khulna Medical College Hospital have been suffering immensely, as around 50 doctors of the hospital’s indoor and outdoor departments remained absent yesterday.

After the flood-protection dam was breached and 13 villages in Deluti union under Khulna’s Paikgachha upazila were flooded last Thursday, around 7-8 thousand people had to leave their homes and take shelter on higher grounds, including other parts of the embankment, roadsides, and different educational institutions.

After the fall of the Awami League-government on August 5 following a mass uprising, Khulna City Corporation’s mayor, most of the ward councillors, and pro-AL contractors went into hiding.

Although most schools in Khulna city and nine other upazilas are open, attendance across these institutions has only been 30 to 35 percent so far.

In 1972, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman allotted 33 acres of land for squatters and displaced people in Mujgunni area of Khulna city to reside there.

Cyclones, river erosions, and floods -- people in coastal Bangladesh have been fighting natural disasters on a regular basis, and each year is turning out to be increasingly more challenging than the previous one due to climate change.

In the heart of Khulna, the Bangladesh Betar centre stood as a beacon of community, culture, and information. Established in 1970, it quickly became a cherished institution, bridging gaps between rural life and broader societal developments.

Most of the councillors’ offices in the 31 wards of Khulna City Corporation have remained locked following a spree of vandalism and looting after Sheikh Hasina’s resignation on August 5.