Floods in Ctg, Sylhet divisions: 44 lakh marooned

More areas in Cumilla and Chattogram were flooded in a span of few hours yesterday with strong currents washing away parts of embankments along the Gumti and Halda rivers.

As many as 44 lakh people remained marooned in 11 districts including Cumilla and Chattogram.

BSS reports that 15 people died and 48 lakh were affected in the districts.

Four died in Cumilla, four in Chattogram, one in Feni, one in Noakhali, one in Brahmanbaria, one in Lakshmipur and three in Cox’s Bazar, said Hasan Ali, assistant secretary at the disaster management ministry.

As the downpour stopped in Cumilla, Brahmanbaria, Feni and India’s Tripura the level of water in rivers fell slightly, said a bulletin of the flood forecasting centre in Bangladesh.

“But seven rivers are still flowing above the danger level. The situation may significantly improve in two days,” said Sarder Udoy Raihan, executive engineer at the centre.

DEVASTATION

Thousands of people in Feni, where the crisis is most severe, are left with no cell phone signal as over 94 percent of the towers there went out of order.

Family members who live in other parts of the country have not been able to contact them for several days.

The telecom regulator said 1,807 or 14.8 percent of the towers in 12 districts went out of order.

Kamrul Hasan, secretary of the disaster management ministry, told reporters at the Secretariat that 77 upazilas of different districts were almost completely submerged.

After the embankment along the Gumti river collapsed in Burichong, Cumilla, early yesterday, around 5 lakh people were marooned within hours.

Mahfuz Babu, a resident of the Mainamati area, said, “Very late at night, I saw floodwater gushing into the village.”

The authorities were taking the people to 35 shelters.

Due to broken and unstable bridges and flooded roads, different upazilas in Brahmanbaria, Chattogram and several other districts became inaccessible.

At least 2,62,400 people were marooned in Fatikchhari, Hathazari, Sitakunda, and Mirsarai upazilas of Chattogram.

Officials said the Halda was flowing 108 cm above the danger level at Narayan Hat at 1:00pm yesterday.

The sheer force of water breached an embankment in 22 places, causing more flooding in Hathazari, said Sohag Talukder, sub-divisional engineer at the Water Development Board.

In Fatikchhari, 1 lakh people were stranded while the roads from Heyanko to Fatikchhari, Jhankar to Raozan, Nazirhat to Kazirhat, and some other areas were closed.

In Brahmanbaria, the road between Kasba and Akhaura was closed as a bridge collapsed and another became unstable.

In Akhaura, at least eight regional roads were closed.

Railway communications in Chattogram have been closed since Thursday.

In Moulvibazar and Habiganj, the levels of water in the Kushiyara, Manu, and Khowai rivers began to fall yesterday morning.

At least 188,739 people were evacuated to 3,160 shelters and the authorities deployed 637 medical teams in the affected regions.