In November 1970, one of the deadliest cyclones in recorded history tore through the Bay of Bengal. The Bhola cyclone killed an estimated 500,000 people and reshaped the coastlines of the Ganges Delta in ways that would take years to fully understand. One of those changes was small, uninhabited, and — as it turned out — significant enough to trigger an international territorial dispute that would last 30 years.
The cyclone's storm surge deposited enough silt at the mouth of the Hariabhanga River — the border between India and what would become Bangladesh — to create a new island from scratch. India called it New Moore Island. Bangladesh called it South Talpatti. It was roughly two miles long, a mile and a half wide, and never rose more than six feet above sea level. It had no trees, no fresh water, no permanent structures of any kind. And both countries wanted it badly.
The reason wasn't the island itself — it was what lay beneath the surrounding water. The region was believed to sit above significant reserves of oil and natural gas, and under international maritime law, ownership of even a tiny island could determine which country controlled the surrounding sea floor and its resources. A worthless sandbar, in other words, was potentially worth billions.
What followed was one of the stranger diplomatic standoffs of the late 20th century. During the day, Indian coast guard vessels would sail out to the island and plant the Indian flag in its soil. At night, Bangladeshi forces would remove it. This continued for years. India eventually sent paramilitary soldiers to establish a more permanent presence in 1981, hoisting their flag and daring anyone to challenge them. Bangladesh kept challenging them anyway.
Diplomatic talks went nowhere. India rejected every Bangladeshi proposal for a joint survey of the island. Each country had its own surveys showing the main river channel ran on the side that favored their claim, and neither was willing to accept the other's data. The dispute simmered for decades, occasionally flaring into heated exchanges, never resolving.
Then, around 2010, something unexpected ended the argument permanently. Oceanographer Sugata Hazra at Jadavpur University in Calcutta confirmed what satellite imagery had been suggesting for years: New Moore Island — South Talpatti — was gone. Rising sea levels, coastal erosion, and shifting river currents had reclaimed every inch of it. The island that two nations had argued over for three decades had simply ceased to exist.
"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking has been resolved by global warming," Hazra said at the time. He did not sound entirely pleased about it. The disappearance of the island was, scientists noted, one of the first documented cases of a territorial dispute being settled by climate change — and a preview of what may happen to dozens of other low-lying islands around the world in the coming decades.
The maritime boundary dispute between India and Bangladesh was eventually settled by international arbitration in 2014. The island itself, the thing they'd fought over, had been underwater for four years by the time the ruling came down. Two nations, three decades, and countless diplomatic hours — all over a sandbar the ocean decided it wanted back.
