Dhaka, Oct. 7 -- For Abdul Momin, the river did not take his home all at once. It took the ground beneath it piece by piece, until the house he had built with a lifetime of savings was gone.

"This char was where my father and grandfather had their homestead. I built a house here with all my life's savings. Within a few days, everything was gone into the river. Now I am living temporarily on someone else's land."

Momin lost his homestead to the Jamuna's relentless erosion. His story is repeated along Bangladesh's great rivers, where the landscape can change in a matter of days and generations of family history can disappear beneath brown, shifting water.

Another resident, Rafiqul Islam, watched his home vanish.

"Everything disappeared ...