Lethal Heating: ’A Life Too Often Lived Underwater’: How Tidal Flooding Is Wreaking Havoc In Bangladesh

Washington Post - Kenneth Dickerman | Photos - Jashim Salam

Photographer Jashim Salam says his family is among those affected by tidal flooding over the past few years. The family had to raise the ground-level floor of their home in Chaktai, in the heart of the city of Chittagong, Bangladesh, by more than two feet to protect it from floods.

A man wades through floodwaters in Chaktai, Chittagong.

Climate change is affecting everyone everywhere in myriad ways. I recently wrote about how rising sea levels are affecting Miami. Rising sea levels are a problem around the world.

Photographer Jashim Salam has been documenting how this has been affecting him, his family and his neighbors in the southeastern Bangladeshi city of Chittagong.

Salam notes Chittagong often is regarded as the commercial and industrial capital of Bangladesh. As such, it is densely populated, with people from all over the country heading there for work.

Salam estimates the population of Chittagong at 6.5 million. Those people are living with the effects of climate change, particularly with regard to rising sea levels.

Salam, his family and his neighbors are badly affected by tidal surges. He told In Sight his home, in the Chaktai area of Chittagong, gets flooded every year from June to October, sometimes as much as twice a day, because of the rising tidal waters from the Karnaphuli River.

alam says this flooding makes life difficult. It affects everyone’s daily routine. “People have to save their belongings from tidal floods and also throw out water from their homes every time it’s flooded,” he says.

“The main business areas of Chaktai and Khatungonj also are affected by the tidal floodwater.” Because of the flooding, business is halted and products become waterlogged.

Residents are trying to find ways to cope. They’ve raised their ground-level floors and built barriers and walls to keep the water at bay. Still, the water finds a way in. This is all compounded by the annual monsoon season.

“This is a recent phenomenon, one many blame on climate change and rising seas coupled with the annual monsoon season,” Salam says. “Residents have had to adapt and adjust to the enormous hardships of a life too often lived underwater.”

Salam’s photos drive home the difficulties people face because of the recurrent tidal flooding. The rising water spares no thing and no one. We see people standing in water driven up to and past their calves, detritus floating through the murky waters and what were once keepsakes streaked, faded and waterlogged.

As Salam told In Sight, “I am portraying a city that I am deeply connected with — and the suffering experienced by its inhabitants.”