{"id":369,"date":"2015-03-27T12:04:31","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T12:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/?p=369"},"modified":"2017-03-07T12:06:24","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T12:06:24","slug":"thousands-left-homeless-in-bengals-sinking-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/2015\/03\/27\/thousands-left-homeless-in-bengals-sinking-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands left homeless in Bengal\u2019s sinking island"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"371\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/2015\/03\/27\/thousands-left-homeless-in-bengals-sinking-island\/thousands-left-homeless\/#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2017\/03\/thousands-left-homeless.jpg?fit=400%2C253&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"400,253\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"thousands left homeless\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2017\/03\/thousands-left-homeless.jpg?fit=400%2C253&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-371 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2017\/03\/thousands-left-homeless.jpg?resize=300%2C190\" alt=\"thousands left homeless\" width=\"300\" height=\"190\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2017\/03\/thousands-left-homeless.jpg?resize=300%2C190&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2017\/03\/thousands-left-homeless.jpg?w=400&amp;ssl=1 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Kalpana Mandal, in her sixties, stood outside her tiny hut in Mousuni, a sinking island in the Sunderbans, with a long fishing net in her hand. All the land around her has been submerged, and hers is the last house standing. In a desperate attempt to save her humble abode from being washed away, Kalpana has covered most of her hut with the fishing net which she fastened at various points on the ground. But there is little hope of her dwelling being spared by the inexorable rising tide.<br \/>\nSince Sunday, large parts of Mousuni island have been under water, with hundreds of houses swept away by the rising tide caused by the Spring Equinox. \u201cI have lost most of my possessions. Once this house is washed away, I will have to live on the streets,\u201d Kalpana told The Hindu.<br \/>\nThere are thousands like Kalpana on the island who have taken shelter either in flood relief camps or makeshift tents set up on the road. \u201cAround 2,000 families in three villages of the island have been affected,\u201d informed Tapas Mandal, Block Development Officer, Namkhana, under which the island falls. According to him, the situation has been worsened by the reluctance of the villagers to relocate to higher ground despite repeated requests from the administration. Mousuni Gram Panchayat Pradhan, Sk Ilias, said that more than three-fourths of the island, whose population stands at around 30,000, have been affected.<br \/>\n\u201cWhere do we relocate? We do not want any money from the government. All we have been asking is that the embankment is repaired so that our families can be spared,\u201d said Basanta Giri, whose house was destroyed. There are over 12 km of embankments which need to be repaired, the villagers claim.<br \/>\nWith water-borne diseases like diarrhoea spreading in the region, a shortage of medicines is acutely felt. \u201cDuring the day we have been distributing ORS and other medicines for water borne diseases, but we are falling short as the number affected people is very high,\u201d said a health officer working in the villages. Mousuni, with its proximity to the open sea, is particularly vulnerable to the rising tides. \u201cOver the past few years, the sea level has risen, as well as the sea temperature. These have been the primary reasons for the present situation,\u201d said Tuhin Ghosh, joint director of School of Oceanographic Studies, Jadavpur University. Dr Ghosh has warned that in the coming years the frequency and the intensity of such tidal flooding are likely to increase.<br \/>\nA joint report (Indian Sunderbans Delta: A Vision) published by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and School of Oceanographic Studies in 2012 had stated that over a million people in the Sunderbans will be affected by the year 2050 due to climate change. The report has called for a change in the existing policies of the government and suggested a \u201cplanned retreat\u201d of the people living in the archipelago to the mainland.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/cities\/kolkata\/thousands-left-homeless-in-bengals-sinking-island\/article6219942.ece\">http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/cities\/kolkata\/thousands-left-homeless-in-bengals-sinking-island\/article6219942.ece<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kalpana Mandal, in her sixties, stood outside her tiny hut in Mousuni, a sinking island in the Sunderbans, with a long fishing net in her hand. All the land around her has been submerged, and hers is the last house standing. In a desperate attempt to save her humble abode from being washed away, Kalpana [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2288,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[39,35,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feature","category-gbm-india","category-india"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8jyTh-5X","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":381,"url":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/2015\/03\/27\/water-recedes-but-water-borne-diseases-rise-on-mousuni-island\/","url_meta":{"origin":369,"position":0},"title":"Water recedes, but water-borne diseases rise on Mousuni island","author":"Lucy Graves","date":"27th March 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"12 diarrhoea cases reported; absence of doctors compels people to approach quacks As the water from the high tides, which destroyed hundreds of houses on the Mousuni island, recedes, people are increasingly facing the threat of water-borne diseases. The seawater that submerged large parts of the sinking island has left\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delta&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Delta","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/category\/delta\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"water recedes","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2017\/03\/water-recedes-300x197.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":373,"url":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/2015\/03\/27\/rising-tides-pose-a-threat-to-sinking-island-in-sunderbans\/","url_meta":{"origin":369,"position":1},"title":"Rising tides pose a threat to sinking island in Sunderbans","author":"Lucy Graves","date":"27th March 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Over 2,000 families affected, acres of farm land submerged Large parts of Mousuni, a sinking island in the Sunderbans archipelago, have been submerged with tides rising because of the spring equinox. \u201cMore than 2,000 families have been affected and hundreds of acres of agricultural land and several fisheries have been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delta&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Delta","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/category\/delta\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"rising tides post a threat","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2017\/03\/rising-tides-post-a-threat-300x182.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2191,"url":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/2018\/03\/20\/we-need-to-give-our-citizens-a-safe-place-to-stay-how-government-is-relocating-coastal-communities-affected-by-loss-of-land-in-the-mahanadi-delta-india\/","url_meta":{"origin":369,"position":2},"title":"&#8220;We need to give our citizens a safe place to stay&#8221; How government is relocating coastal communities affected by loss of land in the Mahanadi delta, India","author":"katharinevincent","date":"20th March 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"by Sumana Banerjee, Sumanta Banerjee, Dr R N Samal and Dr Tuhin Ghosh Separated by thousands of miles but united by a common environmental fate, like the Pacific island nation of Kiribati which is facing the risk of being engulfed by rising seas, the Satavaya Gram Panchayat within India\u2019s Mahanadi\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delta&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Delta","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/category\/delta\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2018\/03\/encroaching-sands-300x169.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":78,"url":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/2017\/01\/25\/land-disappearing-beneath-your-feet-environmental-migration-in-the-sundarbans\/","url_meta":{"origin":369,"position":3},"title":"Land disappearing beneath your feet &#8211; environmental migration in the Sundarbans","author":"Carolin Bothe-Tews","date":"25th January 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Colette Mortreux, Rituparna Hajra and Tuhin Ghosh (DECCMA) Like all deltas, the islands in the Sundarbans are constantly being remoulded by environmental forces. Formation and reformation of islands results from the balance (or otherwise) between inflows of water and sediment load. When rainfall or snowmelt in the highlands is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;India&quot;","block_context":{"text":"India","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/category\/from-the-countries\/india\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Map 1: location of Ghoramara and Sagar islands in the Indian Bengal delta","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2017\/01\/image001-1024x640.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2017\/01\/image001-1024x640.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2017\/01\/image001-1024x640.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2017\/01\/image001-1024x640.png?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":342,"url":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/2015\/09\/11\/an-initial-picture-of-migration-adaptation-vis-a-vis-environmental-change-in-satjelia-island-of-indian-bengal-delta\/","url_meta":{"origin":369,"position":4},"title":"An initial picture of migration &amp; adaptation vis-\u00e0-vis environmental change in Satjelia Island of Indian Bengal Delta","author":"Lucy Graves","date":"11th September 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"On July 7, 2015 DECCMA Researchers from Jadavpur University and Centre for Environment and Development, Kolkata, India interacted with local residents of Satjelia island of Gosaba block (sub-district), of the Indian Bengal Delta for a focus group discussion (FGD). Attended by 15 men and 10 women, the discussion was conducted\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delta&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Delta","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/category\/delta\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ladies discussing","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/181\/2017\/03\/initial-picture-of-migration-and-adaptation-300x182.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":312,"url":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/2016\/07\/06\/video-characteristics-of-migration-in-satjalia-island-in-the-indian-bengal-delta\/","url_meta":{"origin":369,"position":5},"title":"Characteristics of migration in Satjalia Island in the Indian Bengal Delta","author":"Lucy Graves","date":"6th July 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uFn1QOUsSQo Migration is a complex phenomenon. DECCMA defines migration as \u201cthe process by which individuals or whole households leave their usual place of residence for another geographic location, usually crossing an administrative or national border and remaining for at least six months, usually as a result of a change in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delta&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Delta","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/category\/delta\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/uFn1QOUsSQo\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2288"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions\/372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/deccma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}