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National Geographic : 1993 Jun
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"To understand Bangladesh, you must understand our rivers," my friend Mishu Kabir told me. He is a newspaper editor, shrimp exporter, building-materials supplier, and tea grower. The rivers form a vast trans portation network for the entire country. Huge rafts float bamboo and jute. Other watercraft carry rice, wheat, wood for fuel, coal for waterside brickmaking kilns. And, of course, people travel in boats of all kinds. The waterways offer better connections than Ban gladesh's limited road system. And so I was traveling with Mishu up the Meghna River to Chhatak just below India. About two hours out from the port town of Bhairab Bazar, our boat ran aground. "Do Bangladesh: When the Water Comes TERRA INFIRMA Sustenance for the land starved, a silt island, or char, formed of Jamuna River sediments lies muddied by flooding (left). Perhaps as many as five million people live on such fickle isles, which may linger 30 years or vanish in months. Riverbanks are scarcely more stable. At Sadullapur (top) the Meghna River ate away 200 feet of earth in ten days. Left with little but an umbrella, Mono Mia, 55, lost the sliver of land that sustained his family. "I can't think exactly of what I am going to do." 127
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