The flash flood that swept through Cumilla along with a dozen other eastern, northeastern and southeastern districts past month left the communication network in a mess, damaging about 1,200 kilometres of metalled roads and nearly three dozen culverts in the district alone, an official estimate said.
The estimate did not include the rural communication network which now lay in ruins with vast expanses of country roads missing after being completely swept away by the flash flood that raged for more than two weeks affecting most of the upazilas in the district.
In the deadly flash flood that killed over 70 people and destroyed standing crops on hundreds of thousands hectares of land, Cumilla received a massive volume of water released from a hydroelectric project in Tripura of India in addition to water from extremely heavy rainfall.
In Cumilla, the government estimate showed that over 82,000 houses, including thousands of those entirely ruined, were damaged.
鈥楾he actual extent of damage would be higher since many parts of the districts are still under water,鈥� said Saiduzzaman Sadek, executive engineer at the Local Government Engineering Department in Cumilla on Friday.
The flash flood that also swept away parts of the main flood protection embankment in Cumilla along the Gumti River sent a huge volume of water inland causing unprecedented water stagnation across the affected 14 upazilas.
The flood in Cumilla started on August 20 and the flood situation worsened after the flood protection embankment was breached two days later.
The flood turned parts of highways into ditches leaving gaping holes that in places assumed the shape of a small pond.
The part of Dhaka-Chattogram highway near Chauddagram suffered extensive damage.