Bangladesh floods: People have been seen fishing on submerged roads.
Dhaka:
Bangladesh’s rivers have burst their banks and caused the worst floods in the country’s northeast in nearly two decades, with nearly two million people affected by rising water levels, officials said on Saturday.
Mosharraf Hossain, chief public administrator of the Sylhet region, said floodwaters from India’s northeast broke a large dam on the Barak River and flooded at least 100 villages in Bangladesh’s Zakiganj.
“About two million people have been affected by the floods so far,” he told AFP, adding that at least 10 people had died this week.
Many areas in Bangladesh are at risk of flooding, and experts say climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events around the world.
Each additional level of global warming increases the amount of water in the atmosphere by about seven percent, which inevitably has an effect on rainfall.
Zakimganj bus driver Shamim Ahmed, 50, told AFP: “My house is under deep water. There is no drinking water here. We are collecting rainwater.
“Rain is both a blessing and a curse for us.”
People were seen fishing on the flooded road and some residents took their cattle to the flood shelter.
He said all the furniture in the house of the widow Lalila Begum was destroyed, but he and his two daughters were lying down, hoping that the water would recede in a day or two.
“My two daughters and I put one bed in the other bed and live on top of it,” he said. “There is a food shortage. We are sharing one meal and one meal a day.”
The floodwaters inundated many parts of the northeastern city of Sylhet, where another official told AFP about 50,000 families had been without power for days.
Hussein, the chief administrator, said the floods had been caused by rains and water from across the border in the Indian state of Assam.
However, officials said that the broken dam on the Zakiganj border could be repaired as soon as the water level dropped.
(This story was not edited by NDTV staff and was automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
