At least 41 dead in monsoon rains in India and Bangladesh

Europe 1 with AFP 12:29 p.m., June 18, 2022

Heavy monsoon rains in Bangladesh and India have killed at least 41 people and led to flooding that has left millions in dire straits, authorities said on Saturday.

Floods regularly threaten millions of people in low-lying Bangladesh.

But, according to experts, climate change is increasing their frequency, severity and suddenness.

Most of the northeast of the country is under water and troops have been deployed to evacuate residents who find themselves isolated.

A family had no food for two days

Schools have been turned into emergency shelters to accommodate residents of villages that were flooded within hours following heavy flooding.

"The whole village was under water on Friday morning and we all got stuck," said Lokman, whose family lives in the village of Companyganj.

"After waiting all day on the roof of our house, a neighbor rescued us with a makeshift boat. My mother said she had never seen such flooding in her entire life," the youngster added. 23 year old man.

>> READ ALSO

- Bangladesh: at least 49 dead in a gigantic explosion in a container depot

Asma Akter, another woman rescued from the rising waters, said her family could not eat for two days.

"The water rose so fast that we couldn't take any of our things," she said.

Lightning accompanying the thunderstorms has killed at least 21 people in Bangladesh since Friday afternoon, police officials told AFP.

At least 16 people dead in northeast India

Among them, three children aged 12 to 14 were beaten in the town of Nandail on Friday, local police chief Mizanur Rahman said.

Four other people were killed in landslides in the port city of Chittagong, police inspector Nurul Islam told AFP.

At least 16 people have died since Thursday in the state of Meghalaya, in the northeast of India, following landslides and strong floods which submerged the roads, announced on Twitter Conrad Sangma, the Prime Minister. minister of that state.

In the neighboring state of Assam, more than 1.8 million people have been affected by flooding after five days of incessant rain.

The state's premier, Himanta Biswa Sarma, told reporters that he had asked district officials to provide "all necessary aid and relief" to those affected by the floods.

Bangladesh's third airport closed on Friday

On the flood front, the situation worsened on Saturday morning after a temporary respite from the rains on Friday afternoon, Mosharraf Hossain, chief administrator of the government of the Sylhet region, told AFP.

"The situation is bad. More than four million people have been stranded by the floods," said Mosharraf Hossain, adding that almost the entire region is without electricity.

Floods forced Bangladesh's third international airport, located in Sylhet, to close on Friday.

>> READ ALSO

- India bans wheat exports, the G7 is alarmed by a worsening crisis

According to the weather forecast, the floods will worsen over the next two days due to heavy rainfall expected in Bangladesh and northeastern India.

Before this week's rains, the Sylhet region was just recovering from the worst flooding it had seen in almost two decades at the end of May.

They killed at least ten people and affected four million people.