Bhola Island is the largest island of Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

 with an area of 1441 km². It is situated at the mouth of the Meghna River

Meghna River

The Meghna River is an important river in Bangladesh, one of the three that forms the Ganges Delta, the largest on earth fanning out to the Bay of Bengal. Being a part of the Surma-Meghna River System, Meghna is formed inside Bangladesh by the joining of different rivers originaing from the hilly...

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Bhola Island was the site of the world's last case

Rahima Banu

Rahima Banu Begum is the last known person to have been infected with naturally occurring Variola major smallpox. The case occurred on 16 October 1975, when the two-year old Banu was living in the village of Kuralia on Bhola Island in the Bangladesh district of Barisal. Her case was reported...

 of variola major (the main type of smallpox

Smallpox

Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

) in November 1975.

In 1995, half of the island became permanently flooded, leaving 500,000 people homeless. The Bhola Islanders have been described as some of the world's first climate refugee

Climate refugee

Environmental migrant refers to the people who are purportedly forced to migrate from or flee their home region due to sudden or long-term changes to their local environment, which is held to include increased droughts, desertification, sea level rise, and disruption of seasonal weather patterns...

s.