Lessons from Bangladesh’s Community-based Disaster Preparedness
Photo courtesy of BBC
With every disaster, the impact seems to edge closer to home. This past weekend, my family and I found ourselves scrambling to help a small group of people stranded in a town near Gampaha, one of the areas worst hit by the floods triggered by Ditwah. They had taken refuge on the first floor of a building – a familiar response in a town that experiences some level of flooding almost every year -assuming it would be sufficient this time as well. On Friday evening, when the water was only about two feet high, one of them said, “I can just walk through the water tomorrow and get food from the shop” – a strategy that had worked in previous years. But by dawn on Saturday, both the shop and the building were submerged under nearly eight feet of water. What began as an attempt to get them food and basic supplies by boat quickly turned into a desperate evacuation mission. After working every angle we could think of, calling in favours, reaching out to the Air Force, the Navy, the local police and even the Indian High Commission, we finally managed to get them out after 36 exhausting hours.
But once the adrenaline wore off, the questions began. Why had disaster response failed so many people, particularly families without someone on the outside making these calls? Why weren’t we warned about how bad it would get in Gampaha, an area that is highly flood prone? Why did we see evacuation alerts on the news only on Saturday when getting out was already impossible? Who are people meant to call in a crisis like this? And how is it that one of the densest parts of the country didn’t have better response systems?
In searching for answers, I found that Bangladesh has already achieved much of what we continue to struggle with using simple, low cost interventions that have saved thousands of lives. I write this article not just to point out what went wrong but to highlight what can be done immediately, affordably and effectively.
Cyclones are relatively uncommon in Sri Lanka due to its equatorial location, particularly at the scale we have seen with Cyclone Ditwah. But floods, landslides and storms are not. On average 750,000 people were affected annually by natural disasters between 2011-2020 and over 10 million people have been affected by floods alone in the past 30 years. However, despite these vulnerabilities, Ditwah has demonstrated that one of the most glaring weaknesses in Sri Lanka’s disaster management system is its early warning architecture.
A frequent defence is that early warning systems require significant investment. While this is true, it is also deeply troubling given that Sri Lanka’s per capita GDP rose about three fold from 1990 to 2024, yet the disaster-related death rate also increased from 0.2 to 0.27 per 100,000 people affected. Ditwah will raise this number further. The fact that failures occurred even in regions that face floods and landslides almost annually shows that economic growth has not translated into investments where they are most urgently needed.
Bangladesh offers a dramatic contrast
Once one of the most flood vulnerable countries in the world, it has dramatically reduced fatalities through efficient and highly localised early warning systems. Bangladesh’s disaster-related death rate has fallen from 0.83 to 0.07 per 100,000 people from 1990 to 2024. In 1970, over 300,000 people died in a single cyclone; another storm in the 1990s killed 140,000. Yet by 2020, Cyclone Amphan (one of the strongest storms recorded in the region) resulted in just 26 deaths. While a large number of people are still affected due to displacement and economic losses, the country has succeeded in saving lives and reducing exposure.
Data from 2000-2025 also shows that in Bangladesh far higher numbers of people are affected by floods, sometimes several times higher than Sri Lanka, underscoring the fact that the country faces more severe events. Sri Lanka, in contrast, recorded dramatically higher mortality in most years. To put simply, even when fewer people are affected, more Sri Lankans are dying. This divergence highlights what effective early warning systems, preparedness and coordinated local level response can achieve and what their absence costs.
Diversifying communication channels
Bangladesh’s early warning system doesn’t rely on any single mode of communication; it casts a wide net so warnings reach everyone, regardless of access, literacy or technology. Ironically, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) outlines a comprehensive early warning systems framework with multi-tier communication systems at national, distric, and village levels, including last mile dissemination through local officials, police, CBOs, NGOs, the military and volunteers. Yet, as is often the case in Sri Lanka, implementation has fallen far short of design.
Gampaha, one of the most affected districts, is a case in point. This is an area that floods almost every other year yet clear, proactive response mechanisms are nearly absent. During Ditwah, authorities relied heavily on national media for alerts, much of it was lost in all the noise of everything else that was happening all over the county. There was little to no follow through via other channels listed by the DMC itself: no cell broadcasts, no SMS alerts, no sirens, no police vehicles with loudspeakers, no mobilisation of community-based groups and no ground level messengers. Transparency regarding which institutions were responsible for communications was also limited and there was no one stop channel to get updates that were applicable to specific groups of people. Hotlines were shared widely during the flooding itself but responses were slow, inconsistent and overwhelmed. Many people in these densely populated neighbourhoods had no option but to turn to ad-hoc volunteer groups for help.
Bangladesh’s approach is the opposite. Warnings and information reaches people through various channels such asTV and radio alerts, push messages through mobile networks and targeted SMS notifications. It has also built an integrated digital ecosystem where development organisations work closely with national agencies and field teams to translate official warnings into short, easily understandable voice messages tailored to local dialects and literacy levels. These alerts covering floods, excessive rainfall, hailstorms, cold waves and even public health advisories are then delivered directly to at-risk communities through mobile phones.
To strengthen last mile delivery, a mobile-based disaster alert app was also recently launched, which connects local volunteers with government response teams for more coordinated preparedness, rescue and relief. The app supports multiple functions critical to early warning and response, including real time weather updates, risk reduction advice, information on nearby shelters and emergency services, volunteer mobilisation, emergency SMS alerts and integrated coordination across ministries.
Last mile dissemination through volunteerism
If there is one thing Sri Lankans do exceptionally well, it is rallying together in a crisis. This is Sri Lanka’s asset and one that Bangladesh has harnessed systematically. The country has built a network of more than 76,000 trained volunteers along its coastline. They are the backbone of last mile communication. They use a simple tiered flag system in central community spaces in villages, patrol streets with megaphones and even go door to door on foot or motorbike to ensure warnings reach everyoneincluding older persons, homebound individuals or those without mobile phones.
Crucially, the volunteer network is gender balanced so women and children who are often disproportionately affected during disasters are not overlooked during evacuation and response. Women play a critical role in reaching other women within households where early warnings are often filtered through male family members. Their involvement helps bridge deep-rooted information gaps shaped by lower literacy rates, limited mobility and gendered roles that keep many women indoors and away from public communication channels in the country. Building on this same foundation, recent efforts now focus on schoolchildren to help them with disaster preparedness. By training students in evacuation drills, first aid and basic disaster management, Bangladesh is extending its last mile strategy across generations, ensuring that disaster preparedness is not only more inclusive but also embedded early.
The death toll from Cyclone Ditwah stands at 479 and over 1.6 million people are affected across all districts, with numbers rising each day. Extreme events are often described as acts of God but it’s well established now that the climate crisis has made disasters of this scale more frequent and intense. But Sri Lanka’s exposure and its human toll can be drastically reduced. What Ditwah has exposed is not only the raw force of nature but the consequences of institutional gaps that have gone unaddressed for far too long.Early warning systems are just one part of a much larger picture that will require interventions to tackle the deeper socio-economic vulnerabilities that shape who is most affected and why. However, lessons from Bangladesh show that progress is possible and achievable with limited resources when systems are coordinated, decentralised and rooted in communities.
