Most residents of Kalyanpur, a village in Rajbari district of Bangladesh, work in farming. Electricity reached the village only a short while ago.
Brick kilns change the village air
Md Harun or Rashid, a resident, says that five years ago the village air seemed fairly clean, but it has changed a great deal since several brick kilns were built nearby a few years ago.
He says the kiln owners buy up soil and carry it away, and the bricks they burn give off black smoke.
"Engine-driven vehicles go to and from these kilns all the time, and they give off smoke and noise all the time too. The air in our village seems to be getting heavier than before," he said.
He says problems such as difficulty breathing and more coughing are also appearing among villagers.
A nationwide problem
Air pollution is not only a village problem; it now affects the whole of Bangladesh. It is also reflected in a report by State of Global Air, an organisation that works on air pollution.
The report says more than 90 per cent of people in the countries of South Asia, including Bangladesh, live with air pollution in one way or another. Among these countries, Bangladesh has the most people living in polluted areas.
According to the report, air pollution kills 123,000 people in Bangladesh every year, while 1.2 million people died from it in India and China.
Source: BBC Bangla. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.
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