Death toll rises to 30 as floods batter India and Bangladesh

Floods have wreaked more havoc in India’s north east and neighbouring Bangladesh’s eastern region, raising this week’s total death toll to 30, officials said.

Rain stopped in many parts of Bangladesh on Friday and weather officials in Dhaka said the waters had started receding in some areas, but added that the flooding would not be over for days.

In India’s Tripura state, eight more people died in the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 19 since Monday, said a state disaster management official.

In Bangladesh, seven more people died in the last 24 hours, Dhaka-based Ekhon TV reported. Earlier, four deaths were reported in raging waters flooding downstream from India, amid incessant rain in the country’s eastern region.

Bangladeshi non-government organisation BRAC said in a statement that up to three million people remained stranded as fast-moving water inundated vast areas of farmland, destroying livelihoods, homes and crops. It said many remained without electricity, food or water.

Other media reports said up to 4.5 million people have been affected in the delta nation of 170 million people.

A number of charity organisations have called for help, with a student group collecting dry food, cash, water and medicines at Dhaka University in the nation’s capital.

In Tripura, authorities said around 100,000 people took shelter in more than 400 relief camps, as the floods affected 1.7 million people in eight districts of the state. Chief minister Manik Saha undertook an aerial survey to assess the situation.

Liakath Ali, BRAC’s director of climate change, urban development and disaster risk management, said these are the worst floods Bangladesh has seen in three decades.

“Entire villages, all of the families who lived in them, and everything they owned — homes, livestock, farmlands, fisheries — have been washed away,” he said.

“People had no time to save anything. There are people stranded across the country, and we are expecting the situation to worsen in many places as rains continue.”

New breaches in a flood protection embankment in the Gomti River in the eastern district of Cumilla inundated about 100 low-lying villages from Thursday midnight, the Dhaka-based Business Standard newspaper reported on Friday. Other districts including Noakhali, Feni and Chattogram were also hard hit.

Volunteers in Cumilla attempted to alert people to move to safety after the breaches on Thursday night, while residents used loudspeakers at neighbourhood mosques to relay warnings.

Some victims in the area told television stations they had left their belongings behind and rushed to higher ground for safety.

Abed Ali, a senior relief official in Cumilla district, told the Associated Press that residents have been asked to move to shelters, but are facing difficulties reaching them.

The military used helicopters to ferry relief materials and dry food to affected people on Friday, according to posts on its Facebook page.

In Bangladesh, rumours spread online that the flooding was caused by India opening the Dumbur dam in Tripura, causing a number of anti-India protests.

India’s External Affairs Ministry denied the connection, pointing out that the dam is far from the border and heavy rains had caused major flooding over a wide area in both countries.