0 mi 10
0 km 10
B A N G L A D E S H
I
N
D
I
A
Haldia
Harinagar
East
Dhangmari
Rampal
Diamond
Harbour
Canning
Khulna
Kolkata
(Calcutta)
S
u
n
d
a
r
b
a
n
s
S
u
n
d
a
r
b
a
n
s
B
a
y
o
f
B
e
n
g
a
l
P
u
s
u
r
H
u
g
l
i
R
a
i
m
a
n
g
a
l
T
h
a
k
u
r
a
n
K
u
n
g
a
H
a
r
i
n
g
h
a
t
a
B
i
d
y
a
d
h
a
r
i
Sagar
Island
Ghoramara
Island
Mangrove
forest
The Sundarbans spans nearly 4,000 square miles
of India and Bangladesh along the Bay of Bengal.
The world’s largest continuous mangrove forest,
it’s home to a wide variety of species. For the
7.5 million people who live in the region, the for-
est is a natural barrier against tides and cyclones.
But as people cut the trees and rising seas bring
saline waters, the forest and the land itself are
shrinking. More than a million coastal residents
have already migrated north.
Lost Protection
CLARE TRAINOR, NGM STAFF. SOURCE: NASAproliferated across some of southern Bangla-
desh struck this quiet corner of the country.
Cholera, thriving in the hotter temperatures and
increasingly brackish waters of the Sundarbans,
has come roaring back in the swamps in which
it was supposedly born. When I visited, the local
doctor was overwhelmed.
“Almost every one of my patients is here
because of water-related diseases that were
nowhere near as much of a problem before,”
said Shivapada Mondol. “The circumstances
are verging on dangerous.” On a stretcher out-
side his office, a skeletally thin old man retched
loudly; the man’s daughter tried to push more
fluids into him.
Finally, as if to illustrate the impossibility of
living in the new Sundarbans, several dozen
families pulled up stakes in April and moved
to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. No longer
able to make much of a living off the land, they
opted to join the million to 1.5 million other
villagers from southern coastal communities
who’ve already relocated to the overloaded city,
according to Atiq Rahman, director of the Ban-
gladesh Center for Advanced Studies. The World
Bank suggests that by 2050, more than 13 million
BANGLADESH
INDIA
AREA
ENLARGED
Dhaka
New Delhi
THE SHRINKING SUNDARBANS 141