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Bangladesh: The Drowning Country
Friday 7 March , 7.30pm
Unreported World travels to Bangladesh, one of the poorest and most densely populated countries on Earth and on the front line of climate change.
How does a country's population survive climate change as their homes, land and roads all disappear under water? This week's Unreported World travels to Bangladesh, one of the poorest and most densely populated countries on Earth and on the front line of climate change. Ten million people have been made homeless by recent flooding and twenty per cent of the country could disappear over the next century.
Reporter Ramita Navai and Producer Andy Wells begin their journey in South Khali, which was one of the worst hit areas of last November's cyclone. Wading through thigh-high water they reach the makeshift shelters where villagers have taken refuge as their homes have all been destroyed. Locals, many of whom have lost family members, have to make this journey up to five times a day to collect meagre food and water rations.
The team moves inland to the village of Kumira which is still under water from last year's floods, even though it's now the dry season. A rickshaw driver, Rajsaul Biswas, has had to abandon his home of 35 years and now lives in a shack on a busy roadside. Local children can only get to their school by boat and their teacher, Eftekharul Alam, shows Navai classrooms that are still under water. He tells her that the water levels are rising by one foot every year and that soon the remaining classrooms will also be submerged.
Navai and Wells travel north along the Jamuna river, which is one of three main rivers that runs through Bangladesh. Land is so scarce that people rush to emerging 'chars' - sandbank islands often only a few inches above sea level. They can appear overnight and some only last a few months, so there is no infrastructure - no schools, no roads and no shops - and some people have been forced to move home more than twenty times because their homes keep disappearing under water. Fights over land are common and the team talks to Tefazul on Pakura char whose brother was killed trying to mediate a land dispute.
As a result of flooding, tens of thousands of Bangladeshis have fled to the cities and most have ended up in Dhaka's slums. The United Nations has warned that in less than fifty years time rising sea levels could leave thirty million Bangladeshis homeless, but as the Unreported World team leaves the country, it's clear that for the country's population climate change isn't something to concern them in the decades to come, it's happening right now.






