High walls of water stirred up by tropical gales in the Bay of Bengal have submerged southern Bangladeshi coastal districts, forcing thousands to flee their homes and farms, officials said on Monday.
At least 40 fishing trawlers with an estimated 300 fishermen aboard have gone missing since tidal waves flooded the country’s low-lying southern coastline at the weekend, the central office of disaster management said.
”The flotilla of fishing trawlers were out in the bay to avail of the fishing season, apparently ignoring warnings of inclement weather,” said a fisheries ministry official on condition of anonymity.
The coast guard and the fishermen’s association have mounted a search-and-rescue operation in the flooded southern town of Patuakhali.
The Met Office said the flooding was exacerbated by the gravitational pull of the full moon and a series of mild tremors that jolted central and southern parts of Bangladesh, creating panic.
Nearly 50 000 people were driven from their mud-flat villages by the flooding as local rivers, including the Pusur, burst their banks.
Surging waters have triggered cracks in river dams, washed away road bridges and destroyed standing rice crops.
”At least a thousand families have been evacuated to highlands from their fragile homes in vulnerable villages in the worst-affected Noakhali district,” said local administrator Imamuddin Kabir. — Sapa-DPA