Rush to deliver aid to flood affected

Government and aid workers are rushing to assist thousands of people affected by flash floods and landslides that have killed at least 110 and stranded thousands more in southeastern and northeastern Bangladesh.

Monsoon rains starting on 25 June led to the fatal flooding. “Volunteers, fire fighters, army personnel and local officials are carrying out rescue and relief work,” Zahirul Haque, the director general of the government’s Department of Relief and Rehabilitation, told IRIN.

Flooding may worsen in the northeastern districts of Sylhet and Sunamgonj in the next 24 hours, a 28 June report from the Flood Warning and Forecasting Centre announced. 

The government’s Disaster Management and Relief Division said 110 people in four districts died when flood walls collapsed under surging waters and a resulting landslide.

“Our main challenges are now to find the dead bodies, give treatment to the wounded, and provide drinking water and food to the affected people,” Serajul Huq Khan, the government’s chief administrative official for Chittagong Division in the southeast, told IRIN.

Government officials said the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management has allocated 1,600 tons of rice and 10 million Bangladeshi taka (about US$122,000) for affected persons. Each family of the deceased is to receive $244.

More than 2,400 recorded deaths from 25 floods have occurred in Bangladesh since 2000, according to the Brussels-based international disaster database known as EM-DAT.

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