By Rupak De Chowdhuri and Sunil Kataria
Residents of India's Ghoramara Island want to leave their home as it shrinks each year due to rising seas, but many say they can't afford it.
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"If a tsunami or a big cyclone hits this island we will be finished," said Sanjib Sagar, village leader on the island 150 km (93 miles) south of the Indian city of Kolkata.
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Half of the villagers are ready to move if the government provided free land in a safer area, Sagar said, but there has been no response to their request for compensation or to move people off the island.
Two people in the office of Javed Ahmed Khan, the minister in charge of disaster management in the state government of West Bengal, declined to comment on whether it had any plans to relocate inhabitants.
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"There has to be some planning for those people, in terms of relocating them to other areas. Frankly speaking, this has to be in the plan of the government," said Suruchi Bhadwal, a researcher on climate change at the New Delhi-based Energy and Resources Institute.
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