Bangla floods kill 20, strand 300,000
COX’S BAZAR: Monsoon floods and landslides have cut off more than 300,000 people in villages across southeast Bangladesh and killed at least 20 people including six Rohingya refugees, officials said on Friday.
The region along the Bangladesh-myanmar border where nearly one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are in camps has been batered by torrential rain since Monday.
“The floods have stranded some 306,000 people in Cox’s Bazar district. At least 70 villages have been submerged by floods,” Mamunur Rashid, the district administrator, said.
“At least 20 people have died in floods and landslides including six Rohingya refugees,” he added.
About 36,000 people have been moved into schools and cyclone shelters, officials said.
“Many homes are waterlogged. Thousands of people have not been able to get out for the last three days. The roads are all blocked,” Tipu Sultan, a councillor in remote Jhilwanja Union, said by telephone.
At least six Rohingya, including three children, died in landslides and flooding while 15 Bangladeshis were killed, said Mamunur Rashid, the district administrator.
The refugees mostly live in shacks made of bamboo and plastic sheets that cling to steep, bare hills.
TV footage showed flooded homes and muddy water cascading down steps and hillsides. Children played in chest-high waters.
“This is like a nightmare,” said Rohingya Rokeya
Begum. “I have never seen such flooding in the camps in four years. When the water came, there was nobody from my family at home to help. I was alone but I could take my belongings to a safer place. Now I am staying with another family.” The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said more than 21,000 refugees had been “affected” by the flooding while nearly 4,000 shelters had been damaged or destroyed.
It said more than 13,000 were forced to relocate in the camps, while thousands of facilities were damaged, including health clinics and toilets. Access has been hindered due to damage to roads, pathways and bridges.
Refugees, many of them still recovering from massive fires that tore through the camps in March, said landslides and floods let homes “totally covered with mud.” “Somehow my family members could evacuate,” said Abu Siddique, who lives in the Balukhali refugee camp.