Flooded house south of Dhaka, Bangladesh - Yann Arthus Bertrand 5

Flooded house south of Dhaka, Bangladesh (23°41’ N, 90°25’ E).

Here is one more powerful photo by master Yann-Arthus Bertrand. A true gift for our eyes and hearts, dear readers. Do you agree?

Fernando Costa

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Bangladesh is a delta plain covered by a vast network of three hundred waterways. From June to September, heavy monsoon rains cause the rivers to overflow their banks and flood nearly half of the country. Accustomed to

this natural cycle, part of the country’s population lives permanently on chars, ephemeral river islands made of sand and silt deposited by the rivers. In 1998, however, two-thirds of the country remained under water for several months following the worst flood of the 20th century, which claimed 1,300 lives and left 31 million Bangladeshis homeless. Because of global warming, natural disasters of this kind are becoming increasingly common, and six years later Bangladesh was once again hit by devastating floods. It is one of the most heavily populated countries on Earth, and also one of the poorest and the most vulnerable to climate change. Before 2020, 20 million Bangladeshis may be forced to leave their country because of the gradual disappearance of their land under  rising waters, , according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The United Nations estimates that in 2050 some 200 to 250 million people could be “climate refugees”, people forced to relocate due to global warming related environmental disasters.