Maldah and Murshidabad districts of West Bengal, India have always suffered riverbank erosion. Every year, During the monsoon, Several villages and agricultural land is lost in the Ganges.
Every year, hundreds of families become homeless overnight when their villages and lands are washed away in the river. Men migrate to other states for daily laborer jobs while women had to run the families all by themselves on a meager earning. The children drop out of school to support their families and become child labor. The next monsoon brings the same circumstances and yields the same results in the neighboring villages. This series documents the immediate suffering and bears witness to nature's wrath.
Shanaz Bibi 45 stands in front of her freshly eroded home in Lalpur Maldah West Bengal
Karima Bawa 5o poses for a portrait in the backdrop of destroyed homes in Lalpur West Bengal
Juli Bibi 33 lives with her son in a small hut just besides the river Her husband is a migrant labor working in a different state She is now terrified of the river but has nowhere to go
A landscape of a village in Lalpur West Bengal which was greatly affected by the erosion
Poor people who don t have any place to migrate stay in makeshift shelters just besides the river
Children often drops out of school and starts working in nearby brick kilns or local shops
A woman gathers the bricks from the remaining of her eroded home with her child
People often demolish their own home in fear of the advancing river and migrate to a safer place who has the means to do so
Tazamul Sekh 60 of Birnagar West Bengal points to the part of the river where his previous house is used to be
Ruksana Bibi 28 stands with her child in an abandoned home due to river erosion in Murshidabad West Bengal