BY SWASTIK PAL
What would you do if you see all that you have in life sinking right in front of you? Ghoramara, an island 150 km south of Kolkata, in the sensitive Sunderbans delta complex of the Bay of Bengal, has earned the stark sobriquet of “sinking island”. Once it spanned 20 sq km. Now it is reduced to an area of 5 sq km.
“Over the last two decades I’ve lost three acres of cultivable land to the Muriganga river and had to shift home four times. There has been no resettlement initiative from the government,” says Anwara Bibi, 30, a resident of Nimtala village on the island.
Global warming, high tides and floods play havoc on fragile embankments, displacing hundreds of islanders every year. “Most men have migrated to work in construction sites in southern India,” says Sanjeev Sagar, Panchayat Pradhan of Ghoramara Island.
More than 600 families have been displaced in the last three decades, leaving around 5,000 residents struggling with harsh monsoons every year.
“A large-scale mangrove plantation could prevent tidal erosion. With every high tide a part of the island is getting washed away,” says Sugata Hazra, a professor at the School of Oceanographic Studies, Jadavpur University.
Only those without means to migrate are left. Recent research conducted by the School of Oceanographic Studies has estimated that 15 per cent of Sunderbans would sink by 2020, with the possibility of Ghoramara disappearing from the map altogether.
(Swastik Pal is an independent writer and photgrapher based in Kolkata.)
From the April 2016 issue of Fountain Ink.