Climate-Induced Displacement: Case Study of Cyclone Aila in the Southwest Coastal Region of Bangladesh

Climate Change is one of the major issues which are shaking the world and deteriorating all of the natural and man-made elements which are essential to human beings for civilization. Continuously increasing temperature of the globe is creating climate catastrophes and Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries which are facing adverse impacts like cyclones, tidal surges and riverbank erosion. 

All of the Shyamnagar, Dacope and Koyra Upazilas are adjacent to the Sundarbans, the largest single tract mangrove forest in the world, and exposed to the Bay of Bengal. Most of the inhabitants of these areas are small and marginal farmers, fisher folk, forest resource dependent communities and indigenous Munda people.

This region has been suffering from flooding of saline water since last couple of decades. Added to that, due to sea level rise, the high-tide level has been raising and collapsing coastal embankments, which causes these floods and is expanding day-by-day. In the last week of May 2009 the cyclone Aila hit the said Upazilas and caused the death of 193 people. Though death of human being cannot alter with any cost, the severity of Aila was exposed in different forms. More than 700 kilometer of embankment breached and more than 300 thousand people were displaced. Among them, more than 100 thousand people became refugees and took shelter in nearby towns and cities including the neighboring country.

At least 30 thousand people had to migrate from the coastal zone in November 2007, after the serious hit of super cyclone SIDR. According to Ahmed et al. (2008), at least 600 thousand people are displaced every year by different climate induced events in Bangladesh.