DHAKA/GUWAHATI: Authorities inBangladesh intensified efforts on Wednesday to deliver food and drinking water to millions of people struggling after heavy rain unleashed catastrophic flooding across a quarter of the country.
Bangladesh is considered one of the world’s mostclimate-vulnerable countries, with a 2015 analysis by the World Bank Institute estimating about 3.5 million Bangladeshis are at risk of river flooding every year.
On Wednesday, at least 17 of the country’s 64 districts,mostly in the north and north eastern Sylhet region, werereeling from the natural disaster.
Authorities said at least 36 people had been killed andabout 4.5 million people stranded so far. The floods are alsothreatening to disrupt agriculture, infrastructure, and cleanwater supply.
Mohammad Mosharraf Hossain, Sylhet division’s chiefadministrator, said 365 medical teams were trying to reachflood-affected areas to provide tablets to purify water fordrinking.
Sylhet region is among the worst affected, with severalareas also without electricity.
“We are making frantic efforts to ensure there is food anddrinking water for all the affected people,” said Atiqul Haque,director general of Bangladesh’s Department of DisasterManagement.
Large swathes of farm villages were submerged. Rescue teamsused boats to supply drinking water, medicine and food to peopleperched on higher ground and government buildings.
“Many people are in dire need of food and drinking water,”said Enam Ahmed, 45, a resident in worst-hit Sunmaganj district.
“There is water everywhere but no drinking water. Floodshelters were crammed with people but they are not gettingenough food,” he said.
The crisis in Bangladesh has been worsened by rain watercascading down from the surrounding hills of India’s Meghalaya state, including some of world’s wettest areas like Mawsynram and Cherrapunji, which each received more than 970mm (38 inches) of rain on Sunday, according to government data.
In India’s Assam state, at least seven people were killedin the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 44 during the currentwave of flooding that began about a fortnight ago, officialssaid.
“The flood situation in the three Barak valley districtscontinues to be very serious. Army rescuers have evacuatedthousands of marooned people,” Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assam’schief minister, told Reuters.
India’s National Disaster Management Force said in astatement that 14 teams with more than 70 boats and over 400 men were pressed into action in the heavily flooded districts ofAssam.
The team had brought about 14,200 people trapped in thefloods to safe places.
About 5.5 million people have been displaced, of which about3.7 million are staying in government-run makeshift shelters on raised embankments or other higher ground.
Locals in the flood-affected areas said they had neverwitnessed such large-scale devastation caused by rain, and they could soon be facing shortages of essential items.
