3 million people and countless animals struggle to survive in flooded Bangladesh

Bangladesh, which recently saw an upheaval and regime change amid widespread violence, has lurched into another crisis: monsoon floods that have killed 13 people so far and marooned millions of people and animals. This natural calamity is posing a huge administrative challenge to the newly installed interim government amid the political transition, following the exit of Sheikh Hasina in early August.

Deltaic Bangladesh is crisscrossed by more than 200 rivers, 54 of them being trans-boundary rivers with upper riparian India, in four major basins.

A depression (a system that brings in copious rainfall) in the Bay of Bengal has led to the current deluge with rivers in two basins — the north-eastern Meghna Basin and south-western Chattogram (Chittagong) Hills Basin — flowing above the danger mark.

Apart from the torrential rains, the overflowing rivers, El Nino and climate change were the factors responsible for widespread flooding in the country, weather experts said today.

A Disaster Management Ministry spokesperson said, “We are monitoring the flood situation and relief activities from our control room in Dhaka.”

Communications with the central Feni district, which is located almost midway between the capital Dhaka and the port city of Chattogram, was virtually cut off. Floodwaters largely submerged the district headquarters and the collapsed electricity supply system disrupted the telecommunication lines.

“The cross-border Khowai in (northeastern) Habiganj now flows 199 centimetres or nearly 2 metres above the danger marks at places, the Gumti (in eastern Bangladesh) at 118 centimetres above danger mark, and Halda in (southeastern) Chattagram [above] 1 metre at places,” said a spokesman of the Flood Warning and Forecasting Centre (FFWC) about the situation this afternoon.

The FFWC, however, said that heavy rainfall was not observed in the past 24 hours and they were expecting the water level to recede gradually.

The FFWC office came under criticism for its failure to predict the situation, even as the officials attributed the situation to a lack of information from counterparts in the upstream Indian region.

Disaster management officials said that most of the deaths were caused by drowning, while electrocution and falling trees were other reasons for the casualties.

Moreover, the gushing floodwaters split many families, as people were forced to take refuge on highways or rooftops.

Firefighters, with the help of local residents, Red Crescent volunteers, police and army troops, rescued many stranded people in their rubber boats.

At one place, a child was seen standing in chest-deep water. At another spot, a young mother was seen sitting on a pile of bricks with her infant child on her lap before being rescued.

Animal welfare NGOs in Bangladesh have been publishing nonstop SOS posts on Facebook, pointing to the location of stranded animals — urging someone, anyone to reach them — or to plead for food assistance for some of the rescued animals. There has also been video footage of an entire herd of cattle being carried away in the floodwaters, alive but unable to fight the current.

Overthrowing Awami League is bad timing for Bangladesh

According to Bangladesh media reports, the situation became bizarre as local government representatives were unavailable or on the run because of their political affiliation after the ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League regime. That made it difficult for relief co-ordination, the media reports said.

The floods have hit the country just when Bangladesh interim leader Muhammad Yunus is overhauling the bureaucracy by changing their heads.

The new government has also sacked more than 1,800 elected local government representatives across the country since Md Yunus assumed charge on August 8.

Hasina stepped down on August 5 and fled to India amidst a mass uprising that followed attacks, vandalism, and killings of many people loyal to her.

Hundreds of vehicles, including passenger bus services and lorries, plying from the Chattogram port city to Dhaka and elsewhere were stranded due to the sudden rush of water blocking the two major highways. That, in turn, not just isolated people but also hampered the rescue efforts.

“I have never seen or heard of any such flood in (central) Feni district in my life,” said 93-year-old income tax lawyer Kazi Golam Manuddin, speaking to the Press Trust of India from Feni — about 130km southeast of capital Dhaka, near the Bangladesh-India border, with Tripura on the other side. He spoke on the phone as he was forced to move out of his home to take refuge in a relatively dry area.

Even when several experts attributed the sudden flooding to climate change, a 2015 World Bank study estimated that 3.5 million people in tropical Bangladesh were vulnerable (to floods) because of its geophysical topography.

According to the FFWC, the most affected districts in Bangladesh included eastern or centre-east Cumilla, Feni, north-eastern Moulvibazar, Habiganj, and south-eastern Chattogram, where five major rivers were flowing above danger levels.

—With inputs from CtoI News Desk