"world's first climate refugees"

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/10/2009101011512667509.html


In the middle of the world's largest delta, an island is disappearing.

Bhola Island is the "ground zero" of climate change, and home to what have been called the world's first climate refugees.

Bangladesh's largest island is located where one of the country's mightiest rivers, the Meghna, meets the Indian ocean at the Bay of Bengal.

Caught between rising sea levels and the increased water pressure of the river, which has its source in the melting Himalayan glaciers, the island is rapidly being eroded.

Rezaul Chowdhury from the Coastal Association for Social Transformation Trust (Coast) explains: "Every second, this river carries one million cubic feet of water down through the Meghna and around Bhola island.

"All of the siltation gathered by the waters in South Asia meet in the Bay of Bengal, along Bhola island, creating the highest amount of river erosion in Bangladesh."

International scientists count Bangladesh as one of the countries worst hit by climate change.

-snip-

"As climate change intensifies, part of the coastal area will be inundated with salt water, and therefore we will lose agricultural land. If action is not taken to reverse the effects of climate change, up to 30 per cent of agricultural productivity may be lost in South Asia."

-snip-

With a sense of impending doom, Bangladeshis are adamant that something must be done to reverse the climate change which threatens to swallow the country's islands and shoreline, irrevocably changing the lives of the millions who have their homes there.
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and after the glaciers have finished melting the rivers will get smaller and smaller and smaller. . .

any seen before.

nt