Floods hit 10 districts
Floods have struck 10 districts of Bangladesh and other areas are feared to be affected over the next week as rivers have swelled amid incessant rains, stranding thousands of people pushed to the edge by land erosion and threatened dams.
The reach of the floods may spread to the central region next week as rains have continued along with flash floods from the upstream in India, according to the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC) of the Water Development Board.
The situation in Lalmonirhat, Gaibandha, Bogura, Sylhet, Sunamganj, Netrokona, Chattogram, Bandarban, Cox's Bazar and Nilphamari districts worsened on Friday while Chandpur, Sirajganj, Kurigram and Jamalpur were bracing for floods.
Relief in the form of 17,500 tonnes of rice, 50,000 packets of dry food, and Tk 20.9 million cash have been sent to these districts, according to State Minister for Disaster Management and Relief Enamur Rahman.
The districts will each receive 500 tents and be visited by medical teams within the next few days, he added.
FFWC Executive Engineer Arifuzzaman Bhuiyan said heavy rainfall may continue in the upstream, especially India’s Assam, Meghalaya and Bihar, deteriorating the situation over the next week.
In Dhaka, heavy and incessant rains inundated different areas leaving commuters and pedestrians to suffer immensely.
Citing local officials, district correspondents of bdnews24.com said floods triggered river erosion, breached or threatened dams, snapped road links, inundated crop fields and forced educational institutions shut.
Panicked people took refuge on dams in some areas as schools used as shelters were partially submerged.
In a warning, the Met Office said heavy (44-88 mm) to very heavy (over 89 mm) rainfall is likely to occur at places over Rangpur, Mymensingh, Sylhet and Chattogram divisions until Saturday morning due to active monsoon over Bangladesh.
Very heavy rainfall may trigger landslide at places over the hilly regions of Chattogram division, it warned.
Bangladesh experienced the deadliest floods in decades in 2017, when the untimely rise in water levels affected about 10 million people and damaged crops on swathes of fields in the Haor or backswamp regions.
The death toll from drowning and other flood-related reasons reached 140 that year, though the spread of the floods were lesser than those of 1988 and 1998.
