In Bangladesh, nearly one in three children, more than 19 million, are at risk of disasters linked to climate change, according to a new UNICEF report released on Friday. The country’s poverty, overcrowding and weak infrastructure make it uniquely vulnerable to environmental calamity.
The report, A Gathering Storm: Climate change clouds the future of children in Bangladesh, warns that almost 12 million children are vulnerable to floods alone. The last major floods to hit Bangladesh were in 2017, when around eight million people were impacted. The major flooding of the Brahmaputra River inundated at least 480 health clinics and damaged around 50,000 wells.
The UNICEF report found that 4.5 million people living along the coast are regularly struck by cyclones and three million people who are living inland suffer increased periods of drought.
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