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DHAKA - DISASTER-PRONE Bangladesh announced on Saturday that it would plant 100 million trees to create a 'natural fence' against frequent floods and cyclones.
The head of the country's military-backed government Fakhruddin Ahmed launched the project in the capital, Dhaka, saying the trees would 'fight storms, tidal surges, floods and droughts'.
Impoverished Bangladesh has suffered numerous natural disasters that have been occurring more frequently in recent years due to global warming, environmentalists say.
The intensity of the storms have also risen in the low-country country where 40 per cent of its 144 million people live below poverty level.
The trees will be planted over the next three months during the rainy season, deputy environment minister Raja Debashish Roy told AFP.
'It's the country's biggest-ever planting programme. We've undertaken it to protect our natural calamity-prone country from frequent cyclones and floods that has been exacerbated by climate change,' he said.
Last summer, the country was hit by two major floods while a cyclone tore through its coastal districts in November, killing at least 5,000 people and leaving tens of millions homeless and desperately short of food.
Environmentalists said the deaths in the storm would have been even greater had not the world's largest mangrove forest stood as a 'green bastion' against the cyclone.
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