The Hindu : National : Sunderbans faces threat of submergence

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Monday, Jun 05, 2006

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Sunderbans faces threat of submergence

Staff Reporter

"Centre's disaster management mechanism faulty"

Kolkata: There will be no requiem sung to Lohachara and Suparibhanga on World Environment Day on June 5 this year.

Located in the Sunderbans delta area of West Bengal, these two islands were submerged by the rising sea levels. A few more are facing a threat. In the process, hundreds were displaced from their homes and sought shelter in the four refugee colonies in adjoining Sagar Island.

"The Government of India's disaster management mechanism ignores the implications of slow onset disasters like rise in sea level, and does not provide any compensation for people thus affected," says Prof. Sugata Hazra, Director, School of Oceanographic Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

The school, which functions as a lead centre for conducting training in Integrated Coastal Zone Management, has been assessing the vulnerability of the Sunderbans area vis-à-vis climate change.

"The Government must address the issue of rise in sea level, which occurs due to global warming, extensive coastal erosion and the fact that the Sunderban delta is a subsiding one," Prof. Hazra adds. "Based on our research, we estimate that about 70,000 people will be rendered homeless by 2050 ."

A majority of the four million residents of the Sunderbans area, according to Prof. Hazra, lies below the poverty line and lacks access to roads or proper health care facilities. They are vulnerable to diseases like malaria and kala-azar. "The absence of any family planning measure and unchecked cross-border infiltration has resulted in an uninhibited population increase in an area with a very fragile ecosystem," the professor warns.

The increasing salinity of the water, resulting from a decrease in the availability of fresh water downstream, has tested the adaptability of wildlife as well. "The tigers of Sunderban drink saline water, perhaps the only example of its kind in the world," he says.

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