Dozens dead, millions stranded as floods hit South Asia

SYLHET, Bangladesh－Monsoon storms in Bangladesh and India have killed at least 59 people and unleashed devastating floods that have left millions of others stranded, Agence France-Presse quoted officials as saying on Saturday.

Floods are a regular menace to millions of people in low-lying Bangladesh, but experts say climate change is increasing their frequency, ferocity and unpredictability.

Relentless downpours over the past week have inundated vast stretches of the country's northeast, with troops deployed to evacuate households cut off from neighboring communities.

Schools have been turned into relief shelters to house entire villages inundated in a matter of hours by rivers that suddenly burst their banks.

"The whole village went under water by early Friday and we all got stranded," said Lokman, 23, whose family lives in Companiganj village.

"After waiting a whole day on the roof of our home, a neighbor rescued us with a makeshift boat. My mother said she has never seen such floods in her entire life."

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

Floods in two northeastern states of India, Assam and Meghalaya, had killed at least 32 people in the previous two days, officials said on Saturday. At least 16 people had been killed in India's remote Meghalaya since Thursday, the state's chief minister Conrad Sangma said, after landslides and surging rivers that submerged roads.

In neighboring Assam more than 2.6 million people had been affected by floods after five days of incessant downpours, the state's disaster response agency said.

Eighteen people had died in floodwaters or landslides around the state since Thursday, the agency said, with nearly 7,500 people rescued by midafternoon on Saturday.

Help needed

Assam's chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said he had instructed district officials to provide "all necessary help and relief" to those caught in the flooding.

Flooding in Bangladesh worsened on Saturday morning after a temporary reprieve from the rains the previous afternoon, Sylhet region chief government administrator Mosharraf Hossain said.

"The situation is bad. More than four million people have been stranded by floodwater."

Almost the entire region was without electricity, Hossain said.

The flooding forced Bangladesh's third-largest international airport in Sylhet to shut down on Friday.

Around the regional capital, residents waded through waist-deep water along roads next to partially submerged stuck vehicles.

Forecasters said the floods were set to worsen over the next two days with heavy rains in Bangladesh and upstream in India's northeast.

Before last week's rains, the Sylhet region was still recovering from its worst floods in nearly 20 years late last month, when at least 10 people were killed and four million others were affected.

India's army has been mobilized to help disaster response agencies in rescuing stranded people and providing food and other essentials. Soldiers used speedboats and inflatable rafts to navigate through submerged areas.

Agencies - Xinhua