Momtaj Ali points towards the middle of the Brahmaputra River when asked for the location of the famous river port of Chilmari.
The 70-year-old, who lives on the west bank of the Brahmaputra in Kurigram, explains that the once thriving colonial-era port has been devoured by the mighty river.
Like the Chilmari port, both banks of the Brahmaputra, which is popularly known as Jamuna in the area, face the wrath of erosion every day, especially during the rainy season.
The ultimate result of river erosion is that the land areas of Kurigram and Gaibandha districts on the west bank, and Jamalpur in the east, are gradually shrinking.
The river port was situated at Chilmari upazila of Kurigram, the northern district where the Brahmaputra enters into Bangladesh from India. Now, its ruins lie underwater, some 10km from its original location.
Out of the upazila’s six union parishads, three, including Chilmari union, have already disappeared into the river due to the faster rate of erosion on the west bank, said Mohammad Mamun-ul-Hasan, upazila nirbahi officer of Chilmari.
Every year, the people of the area fall victim to erosion and lose everything from agricultural lands to homesteads and are left destitute, he added.
The people of the other upazilas located along the river bank, including Nageshwari, Bhurungamari, Ulipur, Rajibpur and Roumari, also face the same perils.
The average width of the river increased from 8.5km in 1973 to 12.2km in 2009. The rate of erosion of its banks was particularly high between 1973 and 1992, says a study by the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS).
Every year, around 10,000 people living on both sides of the river lose their homes and livelihoods as a result of the river erosion, according to Bangladesh Water Development Board estimates.
“We have been trying to build embankments with sacks of sand at different points on the river’s banks on a regular basis, but nothing stops the erosion,” said Mohammad Shafiqur Rahman, sub-divisional engineer of Kurigram Water Development Board.
However, Vice-Chancellor of Brac University Ainun Nishat, who is an expert on water resources and hydrology, said protection efforts such as sand bag embankments will not yield any good result.
“Such erosion of the river bank is the natural process of a braided river like Jamuna (Brahmaputra), as it is still passing its formation period,” he said.
Nishat said proper training of the river could be done to reduce the risk of erosion of its banks.
He said concrete embankments along both sides of the river could stop erosion, but it would be an expensive option for a country like Bangladesh.
Nishat referred to the Flood Action Plan, which recommends setting up “hard points” across both sides of a river to manage water flow and reduce erosion in a particular course.
Deputy Executive Director of CEGIS Maminul Haque Sarker, who is a morphology expert, said river training could be a solution to prevent erosion, but the government has to consider many other aspects as it would be a huge task.
In addition, matters such as navigability, ecology, environment, land reclamation and fishery resources should be considered before undertaking a huge project like river-training, as a river has a natural ecosystem, he added.
The length of the Brahmaputra/Jamuna River in Bangladesh is about 240km, as measured from its international border at Nageshwari-Rowmari, Kurigram to the point where it meets with the Padma River at Aricha, Pabna.