(Sylhet) At least four million people are affected by the worst flooding in almost two decades in northeastern Bangladesh, the United Nations said on Monday.
Posted at 12:21 p.m.
According to the Bangladeshi government, the floods, which began last week, submerged 70% of Sylhet district and 60% of Sunamganj, killing at least 10 people while two million people were left isolated.
Torrential rains and an influx of water upstream in northeast India have swelled rivers in Bangladesh. The two main border rivers, the Surma and the Kushiara, broke the levees and flooded hundreds of villages.
Arifuzzaman Bhuiyan, the head of the National Flood Forecasting and Warning Center, said the two rivers had reached their highest level since they began to be measured in the 1970s.
“This is one of the worst floods in the history of the northeast of the country,” he said.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) provided an even worse toll, with “more than four million people” affected by the floods in five districts of northeast Bangladesh.
Photo MAMUN HOSSAIN, Agence France-Presse
According to the Bangladeshi government, the floods, which began last week, submerged 70% of Sylhet district and 60% of Sunamganj, killing at least 10 people while two million people were left isolated.
“In this disaster, as it is most of the time, the children are the most vulnerable”, estimated Sheldon Yett, the representative of the UNICEF in Bangladesh.
All schools and higher education institutions have been closed in the region.
At least 350 schools have been transformed into shelters in which more than 8,500 people have taken refuge, often with their livestock.
But according to Netai De Sarker, a senior official managing the crisis, the situation is improving: the water is starting to withdraw from certain areas in the north, even though 1.23 million people remained stranded by the floods on Monday.
The government has sent 140 medical teams to treat people affected by the floods and try to prevent the outbreak of waterborne diseases.
Flooding is a recurring threat to millions of people in Bangladesh, located very low above sea level, and in neighboring northeast India. Many experts believe that climate change is increasing the frequency, violence and unpredictability of such weather events.