Floods recede in north, triggering food, safe water, shelter crisis

Flood situation improved in northern districts on Sunday as the major river systems registered fall in water level but sufferings of the affected people multiplied amid lack of adequate food, drinking water and shelters.
Water level in the Jamuna and the Brahmanputra in the region fell in the past couple days and will continue to fall in the next three days while the Padma from Goalanda point will also fall in the next two days, according to Flood Forecasting Warning Centre. 
Ministry of disaster management and relief statistics show that over 57 lakh people have been affected in 30 districts badly hit by floods due to onrush of water from India and heavy rainfall for the past couple of weeks.
However, the rivers surrounding Dhaka have continued to swell and more low-lying areas on the eastern side of the capital were inundated on Sunday.
But the warning centre executive engineer, Sazzad Hossain, assured that there was no possibility of floods in Dhaka.
According to the centre, the water level in the Balu, Dhaleshwari, Turag rivers and Tongi canal continued to swell and such trend would continue for the next two or three days.

Sandbags are placed beside Dhaka-Aricha highway at Muljan in Manikganj to save the road from further erosion by flood water. The photo was taken on Sunday. — Sony Ramany

Sazzad said that the Jamuna-Brahmaputra river system continued to fall and some rivers in the country’s western districts swelled due to onrush of water from the upstream districts.
The Ganges-Padma river system also started to fall in Rajbari, he added, adding that overall flood situation continued to improve.
Death toll from floods rose to 115 on Sunday from 98 on Saturday, said disaster management department control room.
According to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief report, sent by deputy commissioners of the flood affected districts on August 19, a total of 57,17,550 people have been affected by the floods.
At least 297,254 flood-affected people have taken shelter at 941 centres across the flood-hit districts while crops on some 4,68,609 hectares of lands have been destroyed by the floods, the report says.
At least 2,803 roads, 2,547 educational institutions and 279 kilometres of embankment have been damaged by the floods, it says.
The government has so far allocated 20,470 tonnes of rice and Tk 6.56 crore in cash for the affected people in 27 districts.
According to National Health Crisis Management Centre, at least 12 people died and 962 were admitted to health complexes in 25 affected districts in 24 hours of Saturday.
From July 1 till now, at least 161 people died from flood related causes and over 13,000 contracted various diseases and were admitted to local hospitals.
National Health Crisis Management Centre in-charge Dr Sakhawat Hossain told New Age that a total of 2,212 medical teams were currently working in the flood-affected areas.
He also said that the medical teams were working to create awareness about water-borne diseases, water purification and primary treatment apart from providing healthcare

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net