As waters recede, Bangladesh takes stock – and plans for more flood-prone future

For two months of every summer – monsoon season in this corner of South Asia – Sufia lives on an island in a sea of flooded rice fields. The only way to reach her house is by dinghy, on account of the one dirt road that leads to it being under water. 

Yet this monsoon season was far worse than anything Sufia has experienced in decades. In late August, while hurricane Harvey was battering Texas and Louisiana, heavy rain led to devastating floods and landslides across the region. More than 1,200 people have died and at least 41 million people in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal have been