INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Heavy rains have caused widespread flooding in parts of Bangladesh and India, leaving millions stranded and at least 57 dead, officials
say.In Bangladesh, about 2 million people have been marooned by the worst floods in the country’s north-east for nearly two decades.At
least 100 villages at Zakiganj were inundated after floodwater rushing from India’s north-east breached a major embankment on the Barak
River, said Mosharraf Hossain, the chief government administrator of the Sylhet region.“Some two million people have been stranded by
floods so far,” he said on Saturday
Many parts of Bangladesh and neighbouring regions in India are prone to flooding, and experts say climate change is increasing the
likelihood of extreme weather events around the world.Dozens of people were killed in India during the week in days of flooding, landslides
and thunderstorms, according to local disaster management authorities.A woman cooks outside her home in a flooded corridor of Sylhet,
Bangladesh, after heavy rains
Photograph: Mamun Hossain/AFP/Getty ImagesIn Assam state, which borders Bangladesh, at least 14 people died in landslides and floods.Assam
authorities said on Saturday that more than 850,000 people in about 3,200 villages had been affected by the floods, triggered by torrential
rains that submerged swathes of farmland and damaged thousands of homes.Nearly 90,000 people have been moved to state-run relief shelters as
water levels in rivers run high and large swathes of land remain submerged in most districts.West of Assam, at least 33 people were killed
in Bihar state in thunderstorms on Thursday.An inundated house beside the banks of the overflown Surma River in Sylhet
Photograph: Mamun Hossain/AFP/Getty ImagesMore than three dozen people were injured in the unseasonal weather events that damaged hundreds
of hectares of standing crops and thousands of fruit trees.Bihar has also suffered an intense heatwave this week, with temperatures reaching
In Zakiganj, Bangladesh, people were seen fishing on submerged roads and some residents took their cattle to flood shelters.Bus driver
Shamim Ahmed, 50, said: “My house is under waist-deep water
There is no drinking water, we are harvesting rainwater.“Rain is simultaneously a blessing and a curse for us now.”A man in a flooded
residential area of Sylhet, where about 50,000 families have been without power for days
Photograph: Mamun Hossain/AFP/Getty ImagesAll the furniture in widow Lalila Begum’s home was ruined, she said, but she and her two
daughters were staying put, hoping the waters would recede within a day or two.“My two daughters and I put one bed on another and are
living on top of it,” she said
“There’s scarcity of food
We’re sharing one person’s food and one meal a day.”Flood water has entered many parts of Sylhet city, the largest in the north-east,
where another official said about 50,000 families had been without power for days.Hossain, the chief administrator, said the flooding was
driven by both rains and the onrush of water from across the border in Assam.But officials said the broken embankment on the border at
Zakiganj could only be fixed once the water level dropped.
This article first appeared/also appeared in theguardian.com
