The septuagenarian and his neighbors are among the thousands of inhabitants of the country reduced to live in misery due to rising waters and land erosion, phenomena aggravated by climate change.
One day in September, the Padma River suddenly changed direction and a large part of the village disappeared, carried away by the waves.
“The current was so powerful,” recalls Padan Baroi. “Many of us have been homeless for the past few days.”
Baroi’s family were the hereditary custodians of the Bangla Bazar temple, which hosted an annual festival on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka.
Next year’s festivities could be canceled for the first time in more than a century, as by then many worshipers will have been forced to relocate.
“It was a thriving community of carpenters, fishermen, farmers and traders,” village councilor Sohrab Hossain Pir told AFP.
– Cyclones and bloods –
Bangladesh is a country of deltas crisscrossed by more than 200 rivers, each connected to the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, which start in the Himalayas and cross South Asia.
Periodic floods that submerge homes, markets and schools have always been a part of life for the tens of millions of farmers and fishermen who populate the banks of the rivers – some of the most densely populated areas in the Bangladeshi countryside.
But climate change is increasing the severity and frequency of the phenomenon, causing more erratic rainfall that leads to more cyclones and flash floods.
Bangladesh this year experienced its worst floods in nearly two decades, which killed more than 100 people in the north of the country and isolated seven million others by cutting off main roads.
Rising sea levels due to climate change threaten to force tens of millions more people to flee their homes along Bangladesh’s low-lying coastline, and inundate its most fertile farmland with salt water.
Bangladesh is already considered by the United Nations and civil society groups to be one of the countries most affected by extreme weather events since the turn of the century, with entire villages wiped off the map inland .
The Center for Environmental and Geographical Information Services (CEGIS), a state body, estimates that about 1,800 hectares of land will be eroded by rivers in Bangladesh this year and the homes of at least 10,000 people will disappear .
“These erosion phenomena are clearly the result of climate change”, underlined Ian Fry, United Nations special rapporteur on climate change, during a site visit in September.
The inhabitants of the disappeared villages often leave to settle in the slums which dot Dhaka, a city of 22 million inhabitants whose size has more than doubled in twenty years, mainly due to the rural exodus.
– Responsibility –
At COP27, which is due to take place in November in Egypt, a national plan to help manage natural disasters and increasing extreme weather conditions due to climate change is to be presented.
In particular, it plans to limit river erosion to around 1,000 hectares per year.
It is estimated that $230 billion is needed by 2050 to mitigate the impact of climate change on the country.
“It’s clear to me that Bangladesh should not bear the burden of climate change alone,” said Fry, adding that wealthier nations with higher historic emission levels should help foot the bill. .
“For too long, countries have denied responsibility for the suffering they have caused,” he said. “They should pay for it.”
In Bangla Bazar, a week after losing their home, the Baroi family has still not found shelter. Some of their neighbors have taken refuge in stables.
Those who still have a roof over their heads worry about where they can fall back when the Padma swallows up more land.
“I don’t want to leave,” says Mr. Baroi. “But if the river devours the whole village, what will happen? Where will we go?”
