Warming Winds, Rising Tides, Bangladesh

Asia's largest rivers, the Ganges and the Bramaputra, join in the world's most extensive delta and flow into the Bay of Bengal. There lies Bangladesh, a nation of 140 million people beset by poverty and the floods of the rivers, and now also affected by rising sea level. Gary Braasch visited to document this threat, traveling by boat south from Dhaka and speaking to villagers, fishermen, and scientists. Already a million people a year are displaced by loss of land along rivers, and indications are this is increasing. Villagers spoke of losing a town mosque to unexpectedly fast erosion, even in a time of good weather in the dryer season. The one meter sea level rise generally predicted if no action is taken about global warming will inundate more than 15 percent of Bangladesh, displacing more than 13 million people and cut into the crucial rice crop. Intruding water will damage the Sundarbans mangrove forest, a world heritage site. Read the report here.