By Denis McClean

DHAKA, 10 December, 2019 - There are probably few slum dwellers from Bangladesh at COP25 -the annual climate conference - in Madrid but women in one of Dhaka’s teeming slums spoke today of the upheaval that the impact of extreme weather and the climate emergency is having on their lives.

All ten women meeting in a tiny corrugated shed in Mollah, in the Mirpur neighbourhood of Bangladesh, had a tale to tell of river bank erosion, a cyclone or a flood that had forced them to give up their livelihood and take the climate migrant route to Dhaka.

They are a representative sample of the 68,000 people that become long-term displaced each year by natural hazards particularly river erosion, according to Mohammad Manirul Islam, deputy Secretary with the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief.

“Every year for the last 30 years we have lost 10,000 hectares of land from river erosion. There is no doubt that weather events are becoming more extreme. We are also seeing emerging hazards.  Every year for the last five or six years about 300 people are killed ever. y year by lightning.,” said Mr. Islam.

It can happen overnight as was the case with the village of Shariatpur which became uninhabitable in March this year, destroying the homes and livelihoods of 2,000 people.

It is twenty years ago that Tasnoor and her family fled their village in Bhola. “Most of the village was destroyed. The family lost every piece of land. We did not know how we would survive.”

Her husband Dulal found work as a driver and her parents have also joined them in the slum.