Focus On

If you were looking at a map of the world, which area would you look at to find Bangladesh?

I know, it is just to the east of India!

Well done Harry! Did you know the answer? You have to look closely as it's such a small country in comparison with its neighbour, India. Click on the map to find out the names of the different countries around Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, the rivers Brahmaputra and Meghna flow into the river Ganges and together they form the largest delta in the world. Most of Bangladesh is formed by this vast delta, which is the size of England and Wales combined.


	How are people using the banks of this river in Bangladesh? �Panos Pictures.

As the country is situated where the rivers meet the sea, the land is very flat - and it's also growing! Much of the sediment that the three rivers have picked up on their journeys from the Himalayan Mountains is deposited to create new land.


	� Worldaware.


	Because this river sediment is very fertile, it is good for growing crops like rice. And with so much water, people use the rivers as their main roads!

But the people of Bangladesh have to get used to all this water, and develop ways to cope with the changing behaviour of the rivers during the year. This is particularly true towards the end of the summer season � do you know why?

Yes, this is when the rivers flood their banks. Some of you may remember the floods we had in parts of the UK in 2000 - but these were nothing compared to the annual floods in Bangladesh.

The heavy rainfall each year during the monsoon season is too much for the rivers and they burst their banks, pouring out millions of litres of water onto the surrounding land. In 1998, the floods were particularly big. Three quarters of the country was underwater!

Find out more about the floods of 1998 by visiting
www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/kidsweb/world/Bangla/banghome.htm
www.bangladeshonline.com/gob/flood98

Bangladesh can be flooded by seawater too. Enormous storms called tropical cyclones can build up in the Bay of Bengal, pushing towering waves inland, covering coastal areas with salty water.

Which of these newspaper headings would you expect to see the day after flooding, and which a few months later?
(roll your cursor over the front page to view the article)

You can see from the newspaper articles that the floods bring both good and bad news to the people of Bangladesh. Can you make a list of these good and bad effects?


	A cyclone shelter near the coast of Bangladesh � Worldaware. Life can be hard during the flood season, especially for the poorer people who don't have the money to protect their homes and farms. But you can't stop the forces of nature. Instead, the people of Bangladesh have come up with clever ways so that they can live with the floods. Roll over the icons below to find out more.

Now let's see what life is like by another river. Go to the next page to find out how people live along the banks of the Amazon, the world's biggest river.

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