Nearly 300,000 people in Bangladesh sought refuge in emergency shelters on Saturday as widespread flooding, triggered by heavy monsoon rains, inundated large parts of the country. Disaster officials reported that the floods, which began earlier in the week, have claimed the lives of at least 42 people across Bangladesh and India, with many fatalities occurring due to landslides.
Lufton Nahar, 60, a resident of one of the worst-affected districts, Feni, near the Indian border, described the dire situation. “My house is completely underwater,” she told AFP from a relief shelter. “Water is flowing above our roof. My brother brought us here by boat. If he hadn’t, we would have died.”
Bangladesh, home to 170 million people and crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers, has faced frequent flooding in recent decades. While monsoon rains cause significant destruction annually, climate change is exacerbating the situation by altering weather patterns and increasing extreme weather events.
The flooding has damaged highways and rail lines between the capital, Dhaka, and the main port city, Chittagong, disrupting access to severely affected areas and hindering business activities. Among the hardest-hit regions is Cox’s Bazar, where nearly a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar reside.
On the Indian side, Tripura state disaster agency official Sarat Kumad Das reported that 24 people had died since Monday. In Bangladesh, disaster management ministry secretary Md Kamrul Hasan confirmed that 18 people had died, with a total of 4.5 million affected by the floods. “285,000 people are living in emergency shelters,” he added.
The floods struck Bangladesh as the nation was recovering from weeks of civil unrest, which culminated in the August 5 overthrow of former leader Sheikh Hasina. With an interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus still establishing itself, ordinary citizens have turned to crowdfunding to support relief efforts. The same students who led the protests against Hasina have organized aid, gathering donations at Dhaka University and distributing supplies to flood-affected areas.
The floods also impacted the deltas formed by the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers, which flow through India before reaching Bangladesh. Several tributaries of these major rivers remained swollen, though weather forecasts indicate that rainfall is expected to ease in the coming days.