Heavy rainfall and wind influenced by the depression in the Bay has caused extensive damage to aman paddy fields in the coastal districts of Patuakhali, Barguna, Bhola and Jhalakathi.

Aman paddy on over 67,000 hectares of land in Patuakhali, Barguna and Bhola has been badly damaged while the total area of damaged aman field in all six districts of Barisal division is 90,000 hectares, reports our Patuakhali correspondent.

Local Met office recorded 108.6 mm rainfall from 6:00am on Friday to 12 noon yesterday.

The damaged paddy fields include 32,000 hectares out of a total 2.10 lakh and 340 hectares in Patuakhali, over 20,000 out of 1.83 lakh and 65 hectares in Bhola and 15,000 out of 99,850 hectares in Barguna, said sources of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE).

This correspondent yesterday found a good number of aman fields at Badarpur village under Patuakhali Sadar upazila lying under rain water.

The farmers' losses will be considerable as high yield variety of aman paddy had already ripened while local variety would ripen next month, said Md Nazrul Islam Matubbor, deputy director (DD) of DAE.

A total of 90,000 hectares of aman paddy field has been damaged in all six districts in Barisal division while 7,33,298 hectares of land were brought under aman cultivation in the division, said Tushar Kanti Somoddar, DD of Barisal DAE.

Leave of all the officials and employees under the DAE has been cancelled to deal with the situation due to the depression, he added.

Our Jhalakathi Correspondent reports: The heavy rain and wind caused by the depression flattened standing aman paddy in vast areas of the district.

Almost all the farmers in the district will face more or less loss due to the natural calamity, informed Shiekh Abu Bakar, deputy director (DD) of the Department of Agriculture Extension in Jhalakathi. 

The reporter visited hundreds of acres of land on both sides to Barisal-Khulna highway where he found most of the aman plants fallen on the watery ground. 

"Many farmers informed me that their paddy fields were damaged by the wind and rain," said Md Reaz Ullah Bahadur, agriculture officer of Rajapur upazila.

"Paddy plants on my field are now lying on mud. It will be attacked by rats and various insects," said Al-Amin, a farmer of Monohorpur in Rajapur.

"All my paddy plants were broken and fell on the ground, and I am facing huge loss. I am now worried about repayment of the loan that took for planting the paddy," said Khokon, another farmer of Indrapasha of Rajapur.

Several other farmers of Jhalakathi, Nalchity and Rajapur upazilas said they are facing similar fate.  

"Aman paddy was planted on 22,000 hectares of land in four upazilas under the district of which 10 percent is likely to be damaged," said the DD.