The tiny hut sculpted out of mud at the edge of the sea is barely large enough for Bokul Mondol and his family to lie down. The water has taken everything else from them, and one day it almost certainly will take this, too. Saltwater long ago engulfed the 5 acres where Mondol once grew rice and tended fish ponds, as his ancestors had on Bali Island for some 200 years. His thatch-covered hut, built on public land, is the fifth he has had to build in the last five years as the sea creeps in. ?Every year we have to move a little further inland,? he said. Seas are rising more than twice as fast as the global average here in the Sundarbans where some 13 million people live. Tens of thousands like Mondol have already been left homeless, and scientists predict much of the Sundarbans could be underwater in 15 to 25 years. That could force a singularly massive exodus of millions of ?climate refugees,? creating enormous challenges for both India and Bangladesh. ?This big-time climate migration is looming on the horizon,? said Tapas Paul, a New Delhi-based environmental specialist with the World Bank, which is spending hundreds of millions of dollars assessing and preparing a plan for the Sundarbans region.

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