Authorities reported on Wednesday that six people have died in floods that swept over northeastern India and neighboring Bangladesh as a result of heavy rainfall, submerging over a million dwellings.
Every year, the monsoon rains bring about immense harm, but according to experts, climate change is altering weather patterns and causing a rise in extreme weather occurrences.
Assam, a state in northeastern India, has experienced 38 fatalities from multiple downpours since mid-May. According to disaster officials, four more deaths occurred in the last day.
Two persons, including a Rohingya refugee, were killed in landslides in Bangladesh early on Wednesday as a result of strong monsoon rains, police commander Jahirul Hoque Bhuiyan said AFP.
According to Bhuiyan, some residents of the massive relief camps in Bangladesh, which house around a million Rohingya refugees from neighboring Myanmar, have been moved to safer locations.
Over 1.3 million people were affected by the greatest flooding, according to top government bureaucrat Abu Ahmed Siddique, which occurred in the northeastern Sylhet division.
According to Abu Ahmed Siddique, the government administrator for the Sylhet district, “their villages, roads, and most of their homes have been inundated by flood water.” This was reported by AFP.
The disaster management ministry secretary for Bangladesh, Kamrul Hasan, reported that rivers in India have risen as a result of rains that fell farther upstream.
The Ganges and Brahmaputra, two Himalayan rivers that flow through India, form deltas that cover a large portion of Bangladesh’s low-lying areas.
Hundreds of rescue shelters have been opened throughout Sylhet for people who have been driven from their houses by flood floods, Hasan told AFP.
“Higher terrain”
The weather service in India has sent out notifications to Assam and other nearby states alerting them to the possibility of further flash floods.
State roads have been harmed by floodwaters, and 13 fisherman who were stranded on an island were saved by the air force.
Flooding has also affected a major chunk of the UNESCO World Heritage site Kaziranga National Park, which is home to the greatest concentration of one-horned rhinoceros in the world.
“Forest guards have been alerted,” Arun Vignesh, a park officer, told AFP. “Hundreds of animals are beginning to cross the highway in an attempt to find higher ground.”
In addition to bringing 70–80% of South Asia’s yearly rainfall, the summer monsoon also brings death and destruction from landslides and flooding.
Although it is difficult to predict and varies greatly, experts believe that the monsoon is becoming stronger and more unpredictable due to climate change.
In Nepal, rains last week caused landslides, lightning, and flooding, resulting in at least 14 fatalities.
A landslide in June claimed the lives of at least nine persons in Bangladesh.
Six individuals lost their lives in landslides and flash floods in Sikkim, an Indian state that borders China in the Himalayan foothills, that same month.
