A toddler was washed away by a strong current of rainwater as parts of Sylhet city went under water for the third time within a week on Thursday, leaving its residents suffering immensely.
Police and local people said that two-year-old Arab Ahmed, son of Saber Ahmed of Ingolal Road at Kuarpar area under Kotwali police station, died as he fell into the water around 11:30am.
The incident happened less than a week after a part of a hillock caved in on a semi-pucca house in the Chamelibag Residential Area at Majortila in the city following a heavy rainfall, killing a couple and their two-year-old son on Monday.
Ward No. 3 councillor of Sylhet City Corporation, Md Sikandar Ali, confirmed the death of Arab Ahmed to 抖阴精品.
He said that like other areas in the city, the Kuarpar area also suffered huge water stagnation due to heavy downpours since the early morning.
Arab went down in stagnant rainwater in front of their house while his mother was busy working in the kitchen.
The strong current of rainwater eventually washed away the boy to nearby Gaviarkhal, a canal in the area, said the councillor, quoting the victim鈥檚 parents.聽
Neighbours rescued him from the canal and took him to Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital, where attending doctors declared him dead, Sikandar said.
He said that almost 60 per cent of areas of his ward went under rainwater on Thursday morning for the third time in the week.
Earlier on Sunday, low-lying areas of the ward were inundated by flash floods caused by torrential rain and the onrush of water from upstream regions of Meghalaya and Assam states of India, the SCC councillor said.
The Sylhet Met Office recorded 105mm of rainfall in Sylhet within three hours between 6:00am and 9:00am on Thursday.
Residents of the city alleged that around two-thirds of the city was submerged by three hours of rain in the morning.
SCC public relations officer Sajlu Lashkar, however, claimed that the rain started to recede from city areas in the afternoon.
鈥榃e are trying to tackle the situation through strengthening the drainage system in the city,鈥� he said.
The flash flood that hit Sylhet on May 29 affected more than one million people in 900 villages in all 13 upazilas of the district and 30 wards out of 42 in the city.
Water Development Board鈥檚 Sylhet executive engineer, Rupak Kumar Dash, told 抖阴精品 that the river Kusiyara was flowing 56cm above the danger mark at Fenchuganj at 6:00pm on Thursday, 10cm higher than Wednesday鈥檚 water level.
Meanwhile, a bulletin signed by meteorologist Md Tarikul Newaz Kabir of the Storm Warning Centre of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department in the afternoon said that heavy to very heavy rainfalls are likely to occur in Mymensingh and Sylhet divisions in the next 72 hours, starting at 6:00pm on Thursday due to the influence of an active monsoon.
Besides, the Sylhet district administration requested that all of its officials be prepared to deal with any situation that might arise during the Eid vacation.
The district deputy commissioner, Sheikh Russell Hasan, issued the instruction amid a forecast of a fresh flash flood situation in the bordering upazilas of Sylhet.
