By the time he reached his mud and thatch house, the water had already crashed down a wall. His wife lay beneath it. Shaidullah carried her into the boat, where she crammed in with three of his sisters, his brother, the brother's wife and a nephew. They grabbed a few bags of rice and vegetables.
The rest – bed and pillows, mosquito net, pots and pans, the chicken, and two goats – sank beneath the swelling tide.
"We saved whatever we could get our hands on," Shaidullah said. "But everything else washed away."
Even before the flood, he said, things were hard. Not like years ago, when the rice fields were plentiful. No one in the village was ever rich, but no one starved, either. Shaidullah, in fact, said he was "quite well off" as a rice farmer. He could even save about 10,000 taka, or about $145, each year.
"Now even the daily food is hard to come by," he said. On an average day, he and his wife eat patna, rice soaked with water and salt, and green bananas. His uncle left recently for India, and Shaidullah said he would like to look for work in Khulna, Bangladesh's third-largest city, just a few hours away by bus. But he doesn't see how that's even possible.
"How will we move from here?" he asked. "We don't have anything. We don't have any money to move, as bad as things are. So we have to stay here and make our life here as best as we can."
Reprinted from Greenwire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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4 Comments
Add CommentThe rich countries may be planning to fight agaist climate change, but these climate refugees need urgent United Nations attention now. It is the fault of the CO2 emitteurs if climate is changing. We must take care of those that are affected by our negligence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi from Bangladesh. We want to start a Save the River within 3 months from Bangladesh. We are planning to spread it in our SAARC region. Please let us know can you help us in any matter! Or can we work together to save the river program?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBest regards,
Mahmudul Karim Rubel
CEO
Design Bangladesh
dbemailbox@yahoo.com
www.DesignBangladesh.com
increasing salinity in bd rivers is caused by dams up river in india, not by rising sea levels. cyclones and floods are and have always been regular features of the weather pattern in bd. they are not caused by climate change. in any case the theory that climate change has caused increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather has been discredited and these claims have now been withdrawn by the ipcc. it is disgraceful to see scientific american abandon science so easily and stoop so low to sell the climate change agenda. i used to look up to this magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNice article of lisa, its show the real picture of Bangladesh, I am from Bangladesh, so thank you vry much. How can I contact with her on behalf of a science organization of my Country? Could you please infor me?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTheodore Joel Karmaker
COSMIC CULTURE
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