The Bengal Floods
News Feature, first prize stories
00-08-1988
A little boy in a pot, after severe floods swept Bangladesh in July and August 1988. The simultaneous floodings of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers caused the worst inundations in the history of Bangladesh. With three-quarters of the country, including Dhaka airport, under water, the distribution of relief supplies faced almost insurmountable problems. When the water receded the final death toll was estimated at 2,600. Millions of people lost their homes. Charles Hires: 'I arrived to cover the 1988 floods in Bangladesh fresh from Sudan, where I had also photographed flooding. The contrast between the deluge-stricken desert land in Africa and Bangladesh, where the water levels could be measured in meters, could not have been starker. I told the story of ordinary people, who coped with the floods and carried on with their daily existence with remarkable resilience – unimaginable to someone living in the comfort of a developed society. My pictures also won the first prize in World Press Photo’s news features and the Paris Match prize for reportage.' (World Press Photo retrospective Children's Jury exhibition, 2003)
Commissioned by: Gamma
Photo Credit: Charles Hires
Charles 'Chip' Hires (Pennsylvania, USA, 1953), started working as a photographer for the college newspaper, while studying psychology at the University of Florida. After graduation he worked for The Associated Press, first as a stringer in Philadelphia and then as an editor in New York. He began to travel outside the US for Gamma/Liaison in 1978, and was posted to Gamma’s Paris office two years later. From there, he has covered international assignments in over 100 countries. His pictures of wars, summits and other subjects have been published in most important magazines. In 2003, he left Gamma to become an independent photojournalist.