Over 20 thousand people in ten villages of Dimla upazila under the district remains at serious health risk as around a hundred machines are operating to crush rocks extracted from the Teesta riverbed and underground, causing serious sound and air pollution.

From the area, 50-60 trucks loaded with rocks are daily sent to different places of the country to use in construction works, said traders and owners of rock crushing machines.

Small and medium sized rocks are directly sold to buyers while big sized rocks having diameter of five inches or more are made smaller with crushing machines for convenient use, said machine owners.

“During the work, rock particles and dusts enter human lungs, causing respiratory problems like asthma, bronchitis, tuberculosis and even silicosis. It may also cause eye irritation and cancer,” said Mostafizar Rahman, civil surgeon of Nilphamari.

Thundering sound of those machines affects the hearing system, even may cause permanent deafness, he added.

Visiting a few affected villages including Sutibari, Purbo Kharibari, Tepa Kharibari, Purbo Chhatnai colony and Dalia it was found that dozens of such crushing machines are operating openly in residential areas.

About 500 people, some of them women, work there without wearing masks or specialised spectacles and so, remain highly vulnerable due to exposure to rock dust and continuous sound pollution.

"I have been serving as a worker of a rock-crushing machine at Dalia village in Dimla upazila for one year. Now I am suffering from bad headache, eye irritation, cough and respiratory problems,” said Golenur Begum, 48.

Another worker Shamsher Ali of Chhatnai Colony village said he gets Tk 250 for working 12 hours a day but has to spend Tk 50-Tk 60 for buying medicines as exposure

to rock dust caused him diseases.

"As a rock crushing machine is operating near our house, dust from there gets mixed with our foods, making them difficult to eat. But there is none to stop this offence as owners are influential people," said housewife Morsheda Begum at Sutibari village.

Enayet Ali, owner of a rock crushing machine at Pagolpara village, admitted that such machines cause air and sound pollution.

”If the government makes a rock-crushing zone on empty khas land and arrange safety measures and medical facilities for the

workers, we will shift there," he said.

Osman Cani, deputy director of Rangpur divisional office of the Department of Environment, said if the local administration makes arrangement for shifting all rock-crushing machines to a particular place away from locality it would be easier to bring them under environmental rules.

Rezaul Karim, UNO of Dimla, said he had directed the officials concerned to make a list of such machines and directed the owners to shift those away from locality.