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Photostory                                                                               SINKING
                                                                                                        DREAMS





                                                                                       Centre, more than 700,000
                                                                                       Bangladeshis have been
                                                                                       displaced on average by natural
                                                                                       disasters. The number spiked
                                                                                       during the years with
                                                                                       catastrophic cyclones, like
                                                                                       2009's Aila, which displaced
                                                                                       millions of people and killed
                                                                                       more than 200. But even in
                                                                                       relatively calmer years, there is
                                                                                       a rising drumbeat of
                                                                                       displacement as the sea-level
                                                                                       rises, and erosion, salinity
                                                                                       intrusion, crop failures, and
                                                                                       repeat inundation make life
                                                                                       along the coast untenable.
                                                                                       Overall, the number of
                                                                                       Bangladeshis displaced by the
                                                                                       varied impacts of climate
                                                                                       change could reach 13.3
                                                                                       million by 2050, making it the
                                                                                       country's number-one driver of
                                                                                       internal migration, a World
                                                                                       Bank report states.











 With rising sea levels,                                                                                                                   As the rising water level
 warmer temperatures and                                                                                                                   continues to devour homes in
 increasingly extreme                                                                                                                      Bangladesh's coastal areas,
 weather conditions, the                                                                                                                   people have been forced to
 world is moving toward a                                                                                                                  find floating solutions.  Year
 climate crisis. Climate                                                                                                                   after year, devastating floods
 change poses an existential                                                                                                               break through the mud
 threat to human civilisation                                                                                                              embankments, washing away
 and threatens to push                                                                                                                     homes and crops. Thousands
 millions of species to the                                                                                                                of families across the region
 brink of extinction. The                                                                                                                  desperately survive in
 rising sea level catalysed by                                                                                                             makeshift houses on boats
 climate change has                                                                                                                        with limited supply of food
 displaced millions from                                                                                                                   and water. However, they are
 their homes. However, the                                                                                                                 well aware of the
 intensity of the climate                                                                                                                  inevitability. Lack of land to
 displacement crisis across                                                                                                                cultivate and water to drink
 the globe pales in                                                                                                                        will force them to leave their
 comparison to that in the                                                                                                                 villages one day. Eventually,
 face of modern-day                                                                                                                        they will have to flee to
 Bangladesh.                                                                                                                               Dhaka's congested slums,
 According to the Internal                                                                                                                 living precariously on menial
 Displacement Monitoring                                                                                                                   work.




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