The flash floods that have still marooned over 10 lakh people in 11 districts left a trail of destruction in agricultural fields and fish farms, affecting tens of thousands of farmers who lost everything in the unprecedented natural disaster.
Preliminary reports prepared by the government fisheries and agricultural extension departments revealed that the flood affected crops, including rice, on more than 3.26 lakh hectares of land and caused damage worth about Tk 2,000 crore in the fisheries sector.
In some districts, the flood affected every inch of land where crops were grown, including family orchards, leaving nothing behind for the affected people to restart there life with.
The floods also killed 54 people, including 41 men, 6 women and seven children and displaced around five lakh people of whom over 4.69 lakh are still living in 3,269 flood shelters across the affected districts of eastern, south-eastern and north-eastern Bangladesh.
Between August 16 and 28, revealed a preliminary report of crop losses, 3,26,587 hectares have been affected by onrush of water in 16 districts as a result of the flood, showed a Department of Agricultural Extension document.
The top three districts placed in the loss estimates are Cumilla, Chattogram and Lakshmipur regarding their affected cropland. The government estimate included destruction of standing aman paddy and aman seedbed, standing aus paddy, vegetables, spices, sugarcane, and betel leaf.
Feni, which bore the brunt of the flood being the entry point of onrush of water from India, got its entire standing aman crop cultivated on 32,486 hectare affected in the flood. Of the total 44,814 hectares of cropland in the district, over 38,000 hectares have been affected.
Lakshmipur too saw its entire standing aman paddy on 14,394 hectares get affected by the flood that was triggered by days of extreme rain over a vast landscape stretching from India鈥檚 Tripura to Dhaka. Of 3,607 hectares of aman seedbeds, 3,582 hectares have been affected in the flood.
The government estimate also revealed that the flood affected all vegetables and sugarcane fields and fruit gardens in both Feni and Lakshmipur.
In Cumilla, 33,580 hectares standing aman rice was affected out of total 80,226 hectares.
A situation report on the flash flood released by the United Nations on Friday said that crops on 3,39,382 hectares have been affected in the flood.
抖阴精品 correspondent in Cumilla reported that over 10 lakh people were affected in the flood with 80,000 people took shelter in flood shelters.
Forced to live in cramped unhygienic conditions, exposed to contaminated water day and night, flood victims complained developing various skin diseases in Cumilla.
The Rajapur village has been flooded for the past 10 days with no landscape visible since floodwater submerged it all. Skin diseases have spread to every household in the village, many of the villagers complained to 抖阴精品.
Many people are also suffering from diarrhoea.
鈥楽mall lumps that my 5-year-old daughter initially developed on both her hands have spread all over her body,鈥� said Rehana Akhtar, a resident of Rajapur village.
Rakib, a resident of the same village, said that villagers were scared of coming into contact with the contaminated floodwater but many of them had to do so as they had to work in the field.
The Department of Fisheries, on the other hand, estimated that flash floods caused an overall damage worth Tk 1,899 crore by damaging 1,97,166 fish farms.
A total of 1,07,517 tonnes of fish and shrimp have been destroyed in 12 districts, the fisheries department estimated in its preliminary report.
The UN situation report said that 7,000 schools have been closed due to the flood, affecting 17,50,000 primary students.
Half of Noakhali remained inaccessible to authorities due to the flood, the situation report said.
The death toll caused by the flood meanwhile rose to 54 on Friday. Of the deaths, 19 occurred in Feni, followed by 14 deaths occurring in Cumilla, eight in Noakhali, six in Chattogram, three in Cox鈥檚 Bazar, and one each in Khagrachhari, Brahmanbaria, Lakshmipur and Moulvibazar.聽聽
The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre in a bulletin on Friday said that all rivers in the country continued flowing above their danger marks with chances of their water levels further going down over the next 48 hours.
The Bangladesh Meteorological Department predicted that the weather would remain rather dry over the first week of the next month.
In the 24 hours until 6:00pm, Bangladesh鈥檚 highest rainfall of 27mm was recorded in Rangamati. The country鈥檚 highest maximum day temperature rose to 37.5C in Rajarhat.
Students at the Dhaka University gymnasium work on Friday to send relief materials to flood-affected areas. 鈥� Sony Ramany
