2024-04-26 04:40:41
In India, the villagers victims of the rising waters are now climate refugees
Banita Behra grew up watching, helplessly, the sea advancing on Satabhaya, a coastal village in India, little cultivated by the land around it, abandoned by its inhabitants who are now known as refugees climate.
“We were doing well there. “But the sea came to you and took away our houses.”
Satabhaya is one of the hardest-hit villages on the east coast of Odisha, a state in the Bay of Bengal that has suffered increasingly raging cyclones and floods in recent years.
Behra’s house has gone under the water, now located 400 meters from the new shore.
Some of his neighbors did not want to leave and live in thatched huts by the sea, near the ruins of a Hindu temple dedicated to Panchubarahi, a god believed to protect against natural disasters.
Last year, the Odisha government announced that it would release funds for them to settle in Bagapatia, 12 kilometers inland, giving each family a small piece of land and $1,800 to build a house.
According to the authorities, it was the first program for victims of climate change in India.
But with no sea for fishing and no land for agriculture in Bagapatia, the newcomers regret the loss of their independence. Many men preferred to seek work as out-of-state workers.
Now employed on the other side of the country, the husband of Ms. Behra is away from home ten months a year to provide for their two children.
“We miss him, I cry some days,” she says. “But what can we do?”
– “The floods are intensifying” –
Rising temperatures associated with human activity are causing polar ice caps to melt and ocean levels to rise.
Odisha, where millions of people live along the coast, is highly vulnerable to rising seas.
According to Tamanna Sengupta of India’s Center for Science and Environment Think Tank, Odisha has the highest number of villages in the country that are severely affected by coastal erosion.
The “increasing frequency and intensity” of cyclones and floods has worsened the crisis in the region, she told AFP.
“Residents have been displaced and are at risk of losing their homes due to increasing floodwaters,” informs Mr. Sengupta.
– “The sea will swallow everything” –
Extreme weather events are expected to worsen as temperatures continue to rise, averaging 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, according to UN climate experts.
More than a third of the state’s coastline has already eroded due to “climate change and anthropogenic pressure”, adds Susanta Nanda, Odisha’s forest conservation officer.
India, the world’s third largest emitter of carbon dioxide responsible for global warming, is heavily dependent on coal to produce energy.
The urgency of protecting vulnerable coastal communities has been underscored by the struggles of those who have already been forced to leave their homes, Nanda said. “It is very difficult for climate refugees to rebuild their lives.”
A 2017 report on migration from the United Nations Development Program notes that the successful resettlement of communities displaced by climate change depended on adequate planning.
One of the main problems remains “lack of decent jobs”.
Jagbandhu Behra, 40, could not find work after leaving Satabhaya and went further afield in search of greener arable land, in vain. Her outlook remains grim.
“There is no guarantee that we can survive,” he told AFP. “One day the sea will swallow everything here too.”
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