Floods in Bangladesh are making it difficult to deliver drinking water and dry food to flood-hit shelters in the country’s vast northern and northeastern regions. Over a dozen people have died across the country since the onset of monsoon last week, officials said. The government took the help of the army on Friday to help evacuate the people. A TV channel reported that lakhs of people are deprived of power supply.
According to news agency ‘United News of Bangladesh’, junior minister for disaster and relief affairs Enamur Rahman said 100,000 people have been evacuated in the worst-hit Sunamganj and Sylhet districts and around 4 million people are stranded in the region.
The flood situation in the northeastern districts of Sunamganj and Sylhet is likely to worsen in the next 24 hours, a fresh statement from the country’s Flood Forecasting and Warning Center in the country’s capital Dhaka said on Sunday. It said Teesta, a major river in northern Bangladesh, is expected to flow above the danger mark.
The situation may also worsen in the northern districts of the country like Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Nilphamari, Rangpur, Gaibandha, Bogra, Jamalpur and Sirajganj. Officials said water has started receding from the northeastern region, but it is posing a threat to the central region of the country, which is the route for flood waters to reach the Bay of Bengal in the south. Media reports said people affected by the floods in remote areas are struggling for drinking water and food.
In a video posted online, Arinjay Dhar, a senior director of non-profit development organization BRAC, sought help in ensuring the distribution of food items to the flood-affected. Dhar said he opened a center on Monday to prepare food items as part of a plan to feed 5,000 families in Sunamganj district, but the arrangement is not enough. BRAC said they are trying to reach out to around 52,000 families with emergency supplies alone. With the country recovering from flash floods, fresh floods since Friday have devastated Bangladesh amid heavy monsoon rains.