‘Plinth’ settlements built on raised ground above the country’s flooding rivers are providing permanent homes and emergency refuges
Hamida Khatun is sick of moving. The 60-year has been displaced about 20 times during her life, always as a result of climate disasters. “They seem to follow me wherever I go,” she says. But in 2019, the floods were the worst. “I thought at some point it would stop but it just kept rising and rising,” says Khatun. She saved herself from drowning by grabbing hold of a fallen banana tree that was floating past, and used it as a raft to get to safety.
Born in Tangail, central Bangladesh, Khatun moved from one makeshift home to another along the coastal belt before reaching Chilmari, a sub-district in the north, on the west bank of the Brahmaputra; one of the world’s largest rivers.
