Weather of Arabia - Floods inundated, on Saturday (June 18), large parts of northeastern Bangladesh and India due to monsoon rains, causing stranding about six million people and killing at least 40 people, amid warnings from the authorities that the catastrophic situation will worsen as the rain continues heavy rain;
Authorities said lightning had killed at least 15 people in eight districts of Bangladesh since Friday, and four others had been killed in landslides.
Severe floods in Bangladesh, described by a government expert as possibly the worst in the country since 2004, were exacerbated by torrential rains rushing through the Indian mountains, with rain continuing on Saturday and more rain expected over the next two days.
"Most of the north-east of the country is under water and the situation is getting worse as the heavy rain continues," said Muhammad Musharraf Hussain, chief administrator of Bangladesh's Sylhet district.
Hussain told Reuters that the worst-hit Sonamganj district in Bangladesh is almost separate from the rest of the country, adding that the army-assisted authorities are focusing on rescuing the trapped and distributing relief items, with difficulties in transporting the trapped residents due to a shortage of boats.
Many rivers of Bangladesh have risen to dangerous levels, Arifzaman Boyan, head of the state-run Flood Forecasting and Warning Center, warned.
Officials in Sonamgang district said a humanitarian crisis could emerge if the floods did not abate and proper rescue operations were not carried out, as there is no electricity, no road network and people are in dire need of shelter and food.
It is reported that before this week's rains, the Sylhet region was recovering from its worst floods in nearly two decades at the end of May. The flood waters coming from northeastern India led to the cracking of a large dam on the Buraq River shared between the two countries.
In India, torrential rains for the sixth day in a row hit 25 districts of the northeastern Indian state of Assam, which includes 33 districts, and officials said the armed forces were called in to help evacuate trapped villagers and in rescue efforts after landslides killed at least nine people and displaced nearly Two million people from their homes in the past ten days.
Learn more about monsoon rains in the following articles:
Types of rain and how precipitation is distributed around the world
How the monsoon turns the Indian subcontinent from a wasteland to a flood during the summer
Arabia Weather App
Download the app to receive weather notifications and more..
English
