Byline: Deepa Philipps
India
Climate
change is as real as it gets on the Ghoramara Island which is slowly eroding
into the depths of the Bay of Bengal, reports Deepa Philip
 |
| Water Everywhere: Childhood friends Das and Dolui say climate in Ghoramara is getting worse with each passing year |
“When the ice on the mountains melt, the sea
level rises and causes flooding,” says Firoz all of twelve years. For this
young inhabitant of Ghoramara Island, located in the Bay of Bengal, climate
change is not just a lesson in geography but an everyday reality. “One night my
mother woke me up hurriedly saying that our house was crumbling,” he recollects
with a toothy grin, his innocence evidently untouched by misery.
Once
sprawling across 8.51 sq km, Ghoramara, part of Hooghly river's estuary, has
now been reduced to 4.45 sq km. “Continual rise in sea level due to climate
change, will continue to create havoc in the estuary causing the island to
erode away,” notes Tuhin Ghosh, faculty in the School of Oceanographic Studies
in Jadavpur University, West Bengal, who has been studying the effects of
climate change on the Sundarbans since 1993.
Climate
change and the associated sea level rise is seen to be a major threat to
low-lying areas like Ghoramara. One among the 54 islands of the Sundarbans -- a
vast mangrove delta shared by India and Bangladesh -- Ghoramara has lost 75
percent of landmass just over 31 years (1968-1999). And it continues to recede,
forcing villagers like Firoz and his family to rebuild homes further inland.
Among
themselves, the villagers float various theories regarding why they are losing
their land to the waters. “The extension of the Haldia port by the [West
Bengal] government forces the water towards the island,” says Vishnu Poda Das,
a secondary school teacher in Ghoramara. His words have an element of truth.
In
the 1970s, the state government had drawn up the project despite warnings of
increased frequency and intensity of cyclones and tidal floods. The proposed
seven guide walls to contain ecological damages to surrounding areas have also
not been constructed. This has diverted the flow of water towards Ghoramara
that lies 12 km away from the port.
“High
flow of water hits the island and takes away the soil, loosening it from
beneath, as a result the land slowly gives way to the sea,” says Vishnu Poda
Routh, a native, pointing toward the latest prey of climate change -- a road
leading to his village. The land, wet and clayey, clings to his bare feet as
his eyes recollect the moment when the brick road was lapped up by the waters.
A
gaping hole in the landscape with bits of red brick strewn all around is all
that remains of the road. The island is closing in on its inhabitants. And they
have nowhere to go.
Villagers
lose their ancestral land, houses, cattle and even their loved ones to the
waters that lash the island. Take the case of Shaumoresh Das who owned 30 acres
of ancestral land and now barely has one left. A few kilometers away from Das's
property, Routh is joined by his wife and adolescent son for a herculean task:
their ancestral house that weathered the elements for over a hundred years has
succumbed to the waters.
...... ( the story continues in the next post)
No comments:
Post a Comment