According to the Bangladais government, the floods, which started last week, overwhelmed 70 % of the Sylhet district and 60 % of that of Sunamganj, causing the death of at least ten people.
Le Monde with AFP
Northeast of Bangladesh has undergone the worst floods that this territory has experienced for almost two decades. Several million people are affected by the disaster, the United Nations announced on Monday, May 23.
Torrential rains and an influx of water upstream in the northeast of India inflated the courses of rivers in Bangladesh. The two main border rivers, Surma and Kushiara, broke the dikes and flooded hundreds of villages. According to the Bangladais government, the floods, which started last week, overwhelmed 70 % of the Sylhet district and 60 % of that of Sunamganj. They caused the death of at least ten people, while two million inhabitants were isolated.
Arifuzzaman Bhuiyan, the head of the National Forecasting and Flood Alert Center, said the two rivers had reached their highest level since they started to be measured in the 1970s. ” It is one of the worst floods in the history of the northeast of the country, “he said.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has provided an even more alarming assessment, with “more than four million people” affected by floods in five districts in northeast Bangladesh. “In this disaster, as is most of the time the case, children are the most vulnerable,” said Sheldon Yett, the UNICEF representative in Bangladesh.
Diseases
All schools and higher education establishments 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 cattle.
According to Netai de Sarker, a senior official managing the crisis, the situation improves however: water begins to withdraw from certain northern areas, even if 1.23 million people were still blocked by the waves, Monday. The government has sent 140 medical teams to treat affected people and try to prevent the appearance of water -due diseases.
floods are a recurring threat for millions of people in Bangladesh, a large part of the country being very low compared to sea level, and in northeast of neighboring India. According to many experts, climate change increases the frequency, violence and unpredictability of meteorological events of this kind.