The number of deaths from monsoon rains across South Asia reached 1 238 on Wednesday as Bangladesh remained awash in the worst floods in six years and water-borne diseases began taking their toll.
Diarrhoea caused by drinking dirty water has killed 46 people and afflicted about 80 000 this month, according to the government’s health directorate. Relief workers warned that the situation could worsen as rivers around Bangladesh’s inundated capital, Dhaka, continued to swell.
The annual monsoon flooding, fed by melting snow and torrential rains, has left millions across South Asia marooned or homeless. At least 731 people have died in India, 102 in Nepal and five in Pakistan, according to reports from officials.
The Bangladeshi government said on Wednesday that 400 people have died since June in the worst floods since 1998. They have engulfed two-thirds of the country, affecting more than 25-million people.
Up to 1,3-million displaced people huddle in about 4 000 flood shelters. Villagers have pitched tents on highways or mud embankments with their families and cattle.
”The situation in Dhaka and central Bangladesh will not improve until next week,” the Flood Forecast and Warning Centre said on Wednesday.
Last year, 1 500 people died across South Asia during the monsoons, which lasted from mid-June to mid-October.
Deaths are caused by drowning, landslides, house collapses, lightning, diseases and poisonous snakes that slither through the water and bite people wading through the water to reach higher ground.
In India’s north-eastern state of Assam, almost entirely covered by water, the government asked the Red Cross and other relief groups to provide anti-venom for snakebite victims as well as rehydration salts for diarrhoea sufferers.
”Along with disease and its prevention, we are battling snakebites,” said Bumidhar Barman, the health minister of Assam, where another 45 deaths were reported on Wednesday. ”Snakes, swept by the flood waters from rivers and marches, seem to be lurking around in large numbers, keeping the marooned people on tenterhooks.”
About 12-million people are affected in Assam, where floods have caused 50-billion rupees ($1,08-billion) in damage, said the state’s chief minister, Tarun Gogoi.
In Dhaka, a city of 10-million people, shantytowns in low-lying areas, residential neighbourhoods and parts of the central business district have been inundated. Holding their belongings over their heads, Dhaka residents waded through the waist-deep waters, which had mixed with sewage and turned blackish and foul-smelling.
About 500 to 600 patients — mostly children — are admitted to clinics each day for diseases related to diarrhoea in Dhaka, doctors said. Many children also suffer from fever, coughs and rashes.
Small wooden boats and cycle rickshaws, the only mode of transportation useful in the floods, formed traffic jams.
Electrical wires dangled dangerously over some roads.
Authorities repaved streets in parts of Dhaka following devastating floods six years ago to raise them above flood levels.
New houses have been built on pillars or with higher foundations, but water seeped in anyway. — Sapa-AP