As more floods batter Bangladesh and India, death toll rises to 30

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Floods wreaked more havoc in India’s northeast and neighboring Bangladesh’s eastern region, raising this week’s total death toll to 30, officials and media reports said Friday.

Rain stopped in many parts of Bangladesh on Friday and weather officials in Dhaka said the waters had started receding in some areas, but said the flooding would not be over for days.

In India’s Tripura state, eight more people died in the last 24 hours, raising the death toll to 19 since Monday, said a state disaster management official on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media. Earlier, 11 people were reported dead.

In Bangladesh, seven more people died in the last 24 hours, Dhaka-based Ekhon TV reported Friday. Earlier, four deaths were reported in raging waters flooding downstream from India, and amid incessant rains in the country’s eastern region.

Bangladeshi non-government organization BRAC said in a statement that up to 3 million people remained stranded as fast-moving water inundated vast areas of farmland, destroying livelihoods, homes, and crops. It said many remained without electricity, food or water. Other media reports said up to 4.5 million people have been affected in the delta nation of 170 million people.

A number of charity groups have called for help, with a student group collecting dry food, cash, water and medicines at Dhaka University in the nation’s capital.

In the Indian state of Tripura, authorities said around 100,000 people took shelter in over 400 relief camps, as the floods affected 1.7 million people in eight districts of the state. Chief Minister Manik Saha undertook an aerial survey to assess the situation.

Liakath Ali, BRAC’s director of Climate Change, Urban Development and Disaster Risk Management, said that these were the worst floods Bangladesh has seen in three decades.

“Entire villages, all of the families who lived in them, and everything they owned — homes, livestock, farmlands, fisheries — have been washed away. People had no time to save anything. There are people stranded across the country, and we are expecting the situation to worsen in many places as rains continue,” he said.

New breaches on a flood protection embankment in the Gomti River in the eastern district of Cumilla inundated about 100 low-lying villages from Thursday midnight, Dhaka-based The Business Standard newspaper reported Friday. Other districts including Noakhali, Feni and Chattogram were also hard hit.

Volunteers at the scene at Cumilla attempted to alert people to move to safety after the breaches on Thursday midnight, while residents used loudspeakers at neighborhood mosques to relay warnings.

Some victims in the area told television stations that they had left their belongings behind and rushed to higher ground for safety.

Abed Ali, a senior relief official in Cumilla district, told The Associated Press by phone that residents have been asked to move to shelters, but are facing difficulties reaching them in current conditions.

The military used helicopters to ferry relief materials and dry food to affected people on Friday, according to posts on its Facebook page.

In Bangladesh, rumors spread online that the flooding was caused by India opening the Dumbur dam in Tripura, causing a number of anti-India protests. India’s External Affairs Ministry denied the connection, pointing out that the dam is far from the border and that heavy rains had caused major flooding over a wide area in both countries.

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AP writer Wasbir Hussain contributed to the report from Guawhati, India.