India And Bangladesh Have Been Hit By Catastrophic Flooding, Leaving Millions Homeless And 50 Dead
Heavy rains have caused widespread flooding in parts of Bangladesh and India, leaving millions of people homeless and killing more than 50 people, officials said.
Heavy rains have caused widespread flooding in parts of Bangladesh and India, leaving millions of people homeless and killing more than 50 people, officials said.
Days of flooding, landslides and thunderstorms have washed away roads, towns and villages, leaving people in Bangladesh and parts of northeastern India without food and drinking water, authorities said.
Indian authorities said 31 out of 33 districts in India’s Assam state have been affected, with more than 850,000 people impacted, the Guardian reported.
Floods and landslides have killed at least 18 people in the state, according to local news reports.
Nearly 90,000 people have been transferred to state-run relief shelters in the region. Helicopters have been dropping essential supplies to people trapped in the worst-hit areas.
Meanwhile, in Bangladesh, about two million people have been affected and at least 10 people killed in the eastern Sylhet region, the New York Times reported.
Bangladeshi officials say it is one of the worst floods in nearly two decades.
Dozens of villages in the country’s Zakiganj were inundated after floodwater rushed from northeastern India, authorities said.
Floodwater had been receding on Sunday in some areas, but many rivers remain at dangerous levels.
Relief efforts are underway but complicated by roads that had been cut off by the floods.
Many parts of Bangladesh and neighboring areas of India are prone to flooding, but experts say climate change is increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events around the world.
South Asia has also been reeling from an intense heatwave at the same time, with temperatures touching nearly 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in some places.
According to Al Jazeera, each degree of global warming increases the amount of water in the atmosphere by about 7%, with unavoidable effects on rainfall.
