Bangladesh | Eight dead and two million affected by floods

(Kurigram) The death toll from floods in Bangladesh this week has risen to eight, leaving more than two million people homeless after heavy rains caused major rivers to burst their banks, authorities confirmed Saturday.

Two teenagers died when a boat capsized in Shahjadur, Sabuj Rana, police chief of the rural town in the north of the country, told AFP.

“There were nine people in the small boat. Seven of them swam away. Two boys couldn’t swim. They drowned,” he said.

Kurigram police chief Bishwadeb Roy told AFP that three other people were electrocuted when their boats became entangled in live electrical wires in the floods.

These five deaths are in addition to the three recorded at the beginning of the week.

The government said it had opened hundreds of shelters for displaced people and sent food and relief supplies to the worst-affected northern territories.

“More than two million people have been affected by the floods. Seventeen of the country’s 64 districts have been affected,” Kamrul Hasan, secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management, told AFP.

Mr Hasan warned that the flood situation could worsen in the north in the coming days as the Brahmaputra, one of Bangladesh’s main rivers, is flowing above the danger threshold in some areas.

“We live with floods here. But this year, the water was very high. In three days, the Brahmaputra rose by 2 to 2.5 metres,” Abdul Gafur, a municipal councillor in the district, told AFP. “The flood has inundated more than 80 percent of the houses in my area. We are trying to distribute food, especially rice and edible oil. But there is a drinking water crisis.”

Bangladesh is in the midst of the summer monsoon which accounts for 70-80% of South Asia’s annual rainfall and causes widespread death and destruction from floods and landslides.

While monsoon rains cause considerable damage each year, experts believe that climate change is making them heavier and more erratic.