UNESCO Fears Bangladesh Mangrove Forest Damaged By Super Typhoon

Paris, France (AHN) - A United Nations mission will leave next week for Bangladesh to assess the damage from the powerful typhoon which lashed the country and its Sundarbans mangrove forest early this month.

The forest is listed on the World Heritage List of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

UNESCO experts will examine the situation of the World Heritage property both in terms of safeguarding the site itself and in terms of helping the people living there.

Large areas of the Sundarbans, in the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers on the Bay of Bengal, are feared to have been swept into the sea by the cyclone.

The 345,000-acre (140,000-hectare) Sundarbans is one of the world's largest mangrove forests. It is adjacent to the border of India's Sundarbans World Heritage site and is intersected by a complex network of tidal waterways, mudflats and small islands of salt-tolerant mangrove forests.

The area is known for its wide range of fauna, including 260 bird species, the Bengal tiger and other threatened species such as the estuarine crocodile and the Indian python.

According to UNESCO, it is one of the largest remaining areas of mangroves in the world which supports an exceptional biodiversity.