New Age Staff Correspondent
Thousands of people were either marooned or displaced as flash flood
inundated several districts while heavy rain submerged many parts of Chittagong on Sunday as monsoon set in.
A baby drowned in flood water in Cox’s Bazar and several thousand people in low-lying areas in Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Cox’s Bazar and Bhola have remained marooned as the areas went under water caused by flash flood on Sunday.
Many many parts of the port city under knee- to waist-hight water on Sunday, straining people’s life and disrupting traffic.
The Met Office said that heavy to very heavy rainfalls were might continue for the next two days in places across the country because of an active monsoon.
Meteorologists also said that landslides might take place in one or two places in the hilly regions of the Chittagong division during the period.
The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre’s executive engineer Amirul Hossian on Sunday said, ‘It rained all over the country today as the monsoon has been active and river heights also increased. But it will not cause any flooding.’
The New Age correspondent in Chittagong reported that many parts of the city, including Agrabad, Chawk Bazar, Halishahar, Chandgaon, Chaktai, Bakalia, Katalganj, Muradpur, Bahadderhat, Mehedibagh and Panchlaish, went under knee- to waist-hight water.
Ground floors of most of the buildings in the areas were submerged in ankle- to knee-high water while water ran into the exhaust pipes of vehicles, causing them to go out of order and triggering snarl-up on roads such as Agrabad Access Road, Port Connecting Road, Chawk Bazar crossing and Bakalia DC Road.
Rain water also entered a number of warehouses at the city’s commercial district of Chaktai-Khatunganj and roadside shops in other parts of the city, severely hampering business activities.
Bijoy Kishan Chowdhury, chairman of the standing committee of the Chittagong City Corporation on water stagnation, said that they had removed 22 tonnes of mud from different city canals by spending Tk 7 crore before the monsoon.
‘Drainage of rainwater is, however, hampered during downpour as the canals are not adequate to flush out the water,’ he said adding that there was no option but to dig several new canals to stop water from collecting in the areas.
The correspondent in Cox’s Bazar said that flash flood inundated low-lying areas of the district in the past three days. A two-year-old boy, Rafi, drowned in the pond in their homestead at Konkarkhil of Chowphaldandi in Cox’s Bazar.
Poeple said that thousands of houses at Chakaria, Cox’s Bazar district headquarters, Teknaf, Ukhiya and Pekua were inundated by flash flood caused by heavy rainfalls for three days. The height of the Matamuhuri and Bagkhali rivers also increased by two feet.
The correspondent in Lalmonihat said that about 35,000 people of 30 villages in five upazilas in the Teesta and Dharla basin and 30 low-lying villages in the district were in a miserable condition as most parts of the areas went under water caused by flash flood on Sunday.
According to the Water Development Board in Lalmonirhat, the heights of the Teesta and the Dharla were increasing beginning Saturday noon because of heavy rainfall for three days and water rushing in from the hills across the border in five upazilas. The villages were knee-high water till Sunday noon. Many of the villagers took shelter on roads and dams.
In Kurigram, more than 10,000 people in eight unions of Phulbari, Ulipur and Sadar upazilas were marooned because of downpour that caused a sharp increase in the height of the River Dharla.
Erosion by river has also rendered at least 55 families homeless in the district headquarters in the past four days, the correspondent said.
The affected unions are Phulbari at Phubari upazila, Halokhana, Bhogdanga, Kurigram Paurasabha, Mogalbasha, Panchgachi and Jatrapur in the district headquarters and Begumganj under Ulipur.
In Barisal, Pradip Kumar, officer at the Kalapara weather radar station, said that the low-lying areas of the coastal and offshore islands and chars were likely to be inundated by water surge of 6 to 8 feet high, under influence of a low.
S M Arif Ur Rahman, deputy commissioner of Barisal, said that rivers of the region were still flowing below danger mark flash flood inundated lying-areas on the river banks and water bodies.
The Met Office recorded 5 millimetres of rainfall in Dhaka, 40mm in Mymensingh, 22mm in Tangail, 7mm in Faridpur, 9mm in Madaripur, 69mm in Chittagong, 37mm in Sandwip, 14mm in Comilla, 31mm in Chandpur, 25mm in Noakhali, 20mm in Feni, 36mm in Hatiya, 39mm in Kutubdia, 20mm in Sylhet, 3mm in Srimangal, 42mm in Rajshahi, 27mm in Iswardi, 3mm in Bogra, 42mm in Rangpur, 30mm in Syedpur, 8mm in Dinajpur, 68mm in Khulna, 39mm in Mongla, 49mm in Satkhira, 5mm in Jessore, 13mm in Chuadanga, 19mm in Barishal, 6mm in Patuakhali, 32mm in Bhola, snd 37mm in Khepupara between 6:00am and 6:00pm on Sunday.
Source: New Age
