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Article: Climate change, weak states and the "War on Terrorism" in South and Southeast Asia.(Report)
- Article from:
- Contemporary Southeast Asia
- Article date:
- August 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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On 29 April 1991, Cyclone Marian struck 110 miles off the southeast coast of Bangladesh. Over 139,000 people died, while millions were left homeless. The storm, described by a prominent Bangladeshi politician as "his country's Hiroshima and Nagasaki", caused more than US$2 billion in damage to housing and national infrastructure. (1) In addition, it destroyed crops cultivated over 74,000 acres of land, while another 300,000 acres of cropland were damaged. Bangladesh's major port, Chittagong, could not function for several days as a result of sunken ships that blocked entrances and exits (McCarthy 1994, pp. 2-3).
Recognizing that it was overwhelmed by the scale of ...