It dealt a deathly blow to sexagenarian Mosharraf Hossain when he lost his homestead and a piece of arable land to the mighty Meghna a few years back.
Like others, the loss of homestead forced him to move to a new place and put him in a situation full of uncertainties, reports BSS.
"Once I had a happy family in Vendar village under Sukh Char union in Hatiya upazila of Noakhali," the hapless Hossain said.
"But river erosion grabbed our home and all the belongings as Hatiya is located at the mouth of the Meghna in the Bay of Bengal."
The force of nature compelled Mr Hossain to leave everything-homestead, crops, cattle, trees and utensils-behind him as his family shifted to Aladia village under Burir Char union.
They took shelter on an embankment near the sea.
"Two other villages went under sea, displacing many like us," Mr Hossain said, adding that their sufferings have mounted for extreme weather events like tidal surge and cyclone every year.
Nizam Maji also faced the same fate like Mr Hossain.
He said displacement makes their lives miserable for losing houses, belongings and even their roots, putting them in a precarious future.
Internal displacement is not uncommon at Hatiya as a vast area of the island is being devoured by river erosion propelled by sea-level rise.
According to Bangladesh Water Development Board, hundreds of acres, houses, markets, mosques, institutions, roads, cyclone centres and 14 kilometres of embankments of the island went under sea over the years.
Erosion continues to take place at many points of Hatiya, putting many islanders at the risk of displacement.
Mr Maji said after losing agri-land and houses to erosion, many Karingchar, Boyarchar and Nolerchar families have taken refuge at cyclone shelters.
According to a 2016 Brac report, about 27 million people are at risk of sea-level rise in Bangladesh by 2050.
What is more, the country's two thirds are less than five metres above sea level.
The affected people are confronting such perilous situations without adequate institutional and structural support.
They devise their own strategies to cope with the changing conditions. They are out to make efforts physically and socially to survive the situations.
The impacts of sea-level rise on coastal regions are sudden and episodic hazards, indicating that global sea-level rise will be a major challenge with severe implications on civilisations.
Sea level is on the rise along the Bangladesh coast like other parts of the world.
Official data shows sea-level rise was observed at 5.73mm per year at Char Changa station in Hatiya while 3.38mm at Hiron point in the Sundarbans.
The coastal areas along Patuakhali and Bhola districts and Hatiya are most vulnerable due to sea-level rise while the coastal areas along the Sundarbans and Barguna are vulnerable.
Meanwhile, the coastal communities and islanders have been realising that sea level is rising here affecting their lives and livelihoods as recurrent extreme climate patterns hit them every year.
Dewan Hossain, a Hatiya fisherman, said sea water now reaches the embankment even during normal tide, indicating that water level in the sea rises.
According to a new study of the International Food Policy Research Institute, sea-level rise will push nearly 140,000 to migrate within their district and 60,000 to alternate districts.
With the rise of climate migrants, forest department is leasing out fallow land surfaced outside the embankments of the islands to the landless, poor and displaced for 10 years.
The land is being distributed under the Integrating Community-based Adaptation into Afforestation and Reforestation Programme, jointly initiated by forest department and the United Nation Development Programme.
Divisional forest officer Towhidul Islam said fallow land of forest department in the islands is at the jaw of local encroachers.
If the land is leased to vulnerable families, he said, it could be protected from encroachment as well as the poor would be able to live well.
A total of 9.0 hectares of fallow land has so far distributed among 45 poor families in Hatiya sub-district, whereas 45 ponds were established on the land and each family got one pond to farm fish.
Under the programme, fruit-bearing and timber tree saplings were distributed among the families to plant on their land.
For creating livelihood options, they were also trained up on how to rear duck and cultivate vegetables on the banks of their ponds.
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