Over seven million impacted by June's floods in Bangladesh: IFRC

An international relief agency on Tuesday said that an estimated 7.2 million people have been affected and remained in desperate need of shelter and emergency relief items in northeastern Bangladesh.

An international relief agency on Tuesday said that an estimated 7.2 million people have been affected and remained in desperate need of shelter and emergency relief items in northeastern Bangladesh. According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), from early in the month of June, torrential rain and upstream water have completely submerged around 94 per cent of the town of Sunamganj and 84 per cent of Sylhet districts, in northeastern Bangladesh, bordering the Meghalaya state of India.

Parts of Meghalaya have experienced the highest amount of rainfall in decades, which has led to the overflowing of large river systems running between India and Bangladesh and completely swallowing surrounding areas. "We have never seen this sort of flooding in our living memories in that region. Hundreds of thousands of people took refuge as their houses went underwater and almost all their neighbourhoods were inundated. Large parts of Sunamganj and Sylhet were completely cut off due to severe disruption of road communication and power cuts," Bangladesh Red Crescent Society Secretary General Kazi Shofiqul Azam said in a statement.

"Our volunteer teams were on the ground helping people with much-needed dry foods, cooked food, safe drinking water. Bangladesh Red Crescent has launched a strategy involving USD 10 million to carry out relief and recovery operations in the affected areas," he said further. While Sylhet and Sunamganj have almost been cut off from other parts of the country, multiple districts nearby including Netrokona, Kishoreganj are also experiencing floods.

Bangladesh Red Crescent Society teams are also providing food packages to last at least two weeks, health care services through mobile medical teams, hygiene and dignity kits and tarpaulins and jerrycans. IFRC has launched an emergency appeal for CHF 7.5 million (USD 7.8 million) to support the Bangladesh Red Crescent to scale up and expand the reach of its localized response and recovery efforts to prevent and alleviate the suffering of 300,000 people affected by the recent floods.

"Within just a month, Sylhet and Sunamganj have been flooded and the scale of devastation this time is so much more than the previous ones. We are scaling up our operations alongside Bangladesh Red Crescent due the urgency of the situation," IFRC Head of Bangladesh Country Delegation Sanjeev Kafley said in the statement. (ANI)

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