Key tiger habitat swamped by deadly Bangladesh cyclone

AFP | Dhaka, Bangladesh

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bangladesh forest experts warned yesterday a key tiger habitat hit by a deadly cyclone had been submerged by seawater deeper and longer than ever before, raising fears for endangered wildlife.

Cyclone Remal, which made landfall in low-lying Bangladesh and neighbouring India on Sunday evening, killed at least 38 people in both nations and affected millions more.

More than a million people fled inland to concrete storm shelters before the cyclone hit. But it was the vast Sundarbans mangrove forest straddling Bangladesh and India -- where the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers meet the sea -- that took the brunt of the force.

The forest, which hosts one of the world’s largest populations of Bengal tigers, was swamped, said Mihir Kumar Doe, the head of Bangladesh’s southern forest department. “The entire Sundarbans was under water for more than 36 hours during the cyclone,” Doe told AFP. “All its freshwater ponds, numbering more than 100, were washed away by saline tidal water.”

At least 114 Bengal tigers live in Bangladesh’s portion of the Sundarbans, according to official figures.

Abu Naser Mohsin Hossain, Bangladesh’s senior forest official for the Sundarbans, had said he feared for the wildlife if the freshwater lakes were tainted.

“We are worried,” said Hossain. “These ponds were the source of fresh water for the entire wildlife in the mangroves -- including the endangered Bengal tigers.”