Over 60 dead, millions stranded as floods ravage parts of Bangladesh, India

BANGLADESH, INDIA: Monsoon storms in Bangladesh and India have killed over 60 people and unleashed devastating floods that left millions of others stranded, officials said Saturday.

Floods are a regular menace to millions of people in low-lying Bangladesh, but experts say Climate Change is increasing their frequency, ferocity and unpredictability.

Relentless downpours over the past week have inundated vast stretches of Bangladesh’s northeast, with troops deployed to evacuate households cut off from neighbouring communities. Lightning triggered by the storms has killed at least 21 people around the South Asian nation since Friday afternoon.

At least 16 people have been killed since Thursday in India’s Meghalaya, the state’s Chief Minister Conrad Sangma wrote on Twitter, after landslides and surging rivers that submerged roads.

More than 1.8 million people have been affected by floods in Assam five days of incessant downpours.

Flooding in Bangladesh worsened on Saturday morning after a temporary reprieve from the rains the previous afternoon, Sylhet region Chief Government Administrator Mosharraf Hossain said.

The flooding forced Bangladesh’s third-largest international airport in Sylhet to shut down on Friday. – NEW INDIAN EXPRESS