The Silent Mental Health Crisis In the Sundarbans

The Bay of Bengal is among the most cyclone-prone regions on earth: 26 of the 35 deadliest tropical cyclones in world history have occurred in the Bay of Bengal in the past two centuries, as IndiaSpend reported in July 2024. The 30-km long stretch of four islands of the Sundarban (Sagar, Moushuni, Bakkhali-Fraserganj and G-Plot) is extremely vulnerable and frequently damaged by cyclonic surges.

Repeated exposure to extreme weather events that destroy livelihoods, homes and security is affecting the mental health of communities in the Sundarbans. The loss of farmland, homes and food security takes a toll, Snigdha Samsha, an accredited social health activist (ASHA) in Ghoramara, says. “While men are able to go out [in search of work], the women are oftentimes left to be in the islands,” she adds, compounding the impact. This experience is echoed in the findings of health practitioners and academicians.

Since Cyclone Aila in 2009, Badal Maity remains in a state of disorientation, his daughter-in-law Basumati says. “The smell of water that hits your home stays for days. It haunts you and dulls your senses,” she adds.

Gauri Barua describes her days at the government hospital in Kakdwip, in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district, as the worst months of her life. “The water pushed me into a delirium,” she recalls, referring to weeks of disorientation, depression and insomnia interspersed with moments when she was unable to remember who or where she was.

The year was 2020. When Cyclone Amphan hit the Sundarbans that May, the residents of Ghoramara--an ‘eroded island’, a part of Sagar Islands until 1904--were relocated to nearby flood centres. Barua’s village and its surroundings have borne the brunt of five cyclones since 2009. Amphan alone displaced thousands in the Sundarbans and laid waste to over 21,000 sq km of land.

When the clouds of danger approach. Repeated cyclones have led to coastal erosion, especially on a 30-km stretch of four islands in the Sundarbans.

The shock of the water remains in the memory. “In the aftermath of disasters, patients complain of sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and recurring memories of the cattle drowning, children being swept away and house roofs collapsing,” says psychiatrist Kedar Banerjee.

A paper published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction in 2023 studied cyclone-induced water insecurity in the Indian Sundarban delta and found “varying levels of stress and anxiety” including indecisiveness, fear of waterlessness, irritation and loss of self-esteem. The study, which combined 17 focus group discussions among 157 participants and a survey of 121 households in the aftermath of cyclones Amphan and Yaas, emphasised the need for socio-psychological counselling at the community level.

“It’s living in a bird’s nest. We constantly are in fear that a strong gust of wind could sweep everything away,” fisherman Bikas Das says.

At dawn on Sagar Island, fisherman Bikas Das pushes his boat into the water where his neighbour’s home once stood. The tide has claimed it, along with dozens of others. “Every year,” he says, “the river eats more.” And this loss is well documented. A study led by Sugato Hazra of the School of Oceanographic Studies, Jadavpur University, shows Sagar Island has already lost about 34 sq km of land to erosion--farms, villages and mangroves gone.

Oftentimes, the boat cannot be moored–erosion from repeated cyclones has shrunk the islands and made what’s remaining of the coast extremely vulnerable.

While seas around the world are rising by about 2 mm a year, here in the Ganga-Brahmaputra Delta the rise is more than 3 mm. That extra millimetre is the difference between safety and loss for families on the coast--pushing them to move inland, rebuild fragile homes, or risk being swept away. Sagar Island, for them, is no longer just home. It is the battlefront of climate change.

“If the sea takes Ghoramara, the Sagar Islands will go in a blink of an eye,” says 70-year-old resident Sekh Shah Jahan, looking away into the sea as he speaks. His 24-year-old daughter Sajida intervenes to say that her brother had left for Mumbai in search of work. “He will never return again,” Sajida tells us in a pensive tone.

Sajida with her father, Sekh Shah Jahan, Ghoramara Islands.

A 2020 paper by researchers from Canada shows that the Sustainable Development Goals’ lack of multifactorial disease and mental health risk factors, as well as water-borne disease indicators, misses critical health-associated impacts of floods and droughts, as IndiaSpend reported in September 2025. In particular, the narrow focus on suicide as an indicator of mental health overlooks how anxiety disorders or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can also have severe consequences for those affected by disasters.

When the sea is silent, they fear the impending storms. “It’s living in a bird’s nest. We constantly are in fear that a strong gust of wind could sweep everything away,” says Bikas Das.

When the waters recede, the memories of flooding and displacement continue to take a heavy toll on the mental health of residents–in addition to anxiety of looming disaster.

A 2016 paper explored rising sea temperatures, land erosion and their links to migration and food security, and found that about 44% of 300 households surveyed are not getting two square meals every day–a major challenge that leads to migration to other states.

A rising sea, frequent natural disasters, and climate change have worsened prospects for farmers and fishermen, while destroying homes and businesses in the Sundarbans, leading to even greater migration, as IndiaSpend reported in May 2025. Decades ago, only male members would migrate. Now women and sometimes entire families migrate in search of better livelihoods, and a better quality of life, we had reported.

Sound of Silence is a non-governmental organisation working to increase awareness of mental health in the Sundarbans. Its workers organise monthly gatherings where they help villagers express themselves through writing exercises. This is then shared with medical care units, but they lack the means to respond to the mental health needs of the community. “Often, community members are not able to continue their checkups due to distance," says Pritikana Halder, community health officer at Ghoramara Island.

Atreyi Chakrabarty, chief medical officer of 24 Parganas, says that the health system remains lacking when it comes to mental health. ASHAs and community health officers are provided incentives on the basis of referring patients matching a list of a dozen ailments, but mental health is not on the list.

Only one in five people with mental health disorders for the past 12 months received evidence-based treatments, IndiaSpend reported in June 2023.

“Every May, we see a couple of cyclones, some more devastating than others,” Chakraborty says. “More and more mangrove forests are being cut down to make space for resorts. Tourist footfall is increasing. All of these are making Sundarbans more vulnerable.”

"Every night while the rest of my family sleeps, I lie awake--the ticking of the clock echoing in my chest as the tide rises,” Shankar Bera from Mahishamari, Sagar Islands says.

Researchers argue that these mental health impacts need to be understood within a broader “new environmental humanities” lens, which connects ethics, sustainability and lived experience. In the last 20 years, researchers have studied Sundarbans under this lens, but gaps remain. Bridging these gaps will mean pairing research with lived realities.

This story was produced with the support of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.

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