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DHAKA, July 26: The flood water has started receding in the northern and north-eastern districts of the country, while the situation in the central region, including Dhaka, deteriorated further, reports said on Monday.
Reports from different parts of the country say the flood water has started receding in Sylhet, Sunamganj, Habibganj, Moulvibazar, Netrakona, Kurigram, Rangpur, Gaibandha, Bogra, Naogaon, Pabna, Jamalpur, Sirajganj and Comilla.
However, the situation in Madaripur, Rajbari, Shariatpur, Gopalganj, Narshingdi, Kishoreganj and Brahmanbaria remained unchanged. Water level of all the rivers around the capital rose further and most parts of the city had been swamped with flood water.
The government and non-government organizations fear a humanitarian crisis after the flood that has already killed 300 people and affected around 24 million across the country.
Minister for Food and Disaster Management Chowdhry Kamal Ibne Yusuf at a meeting with different NGOs on Monday stressed the need for a proper coordination between the government and other organizations involved in relief and rehabilitation works in order to avert post-flood humanitarian crisis.
In another development, a total of 29 flood protection embankments built around some urban centres have become either vulnerable to breaches or endangered because of the high current of flood water.
The Bangladesh Water Development Board in a flood assessment report says that over 150km of those embankments are likely to cave in. The current flooding has completely washed away over 100km of embankments and partially damaged nearly 432km of embankments.
Meanwhile, the government has decided to seek help from multilateral lenders and institutions to support post-flood rehabilitation programme. Finance and planning Minister Saifur Rahman told newsmen on Monday that the government had adequate resources to respond to the immediate problems of the flood affected people.
He, however, expressed concern that the prolonged flood and the magnitude of the devastation might adversely impact on the budgetary target of poverty reduction. "We would seek support from multilateral institutions to help the country's reconstruction and rehabilitation programmes to be undertaken once the flood is over," he said.
BOATS REPLACED RICKSHAWS: Thousands of people in Dhaka took boats to work on Monday after floods inundated large parts of the Bangladeshi capital, forcing up to 100,000 people to cram into shelters, agencies add.
Many streets in the city of 10 million people were waist-deep in water as the country's most severe floods in 15 years worsened. About one-third of Dhaka was under water and boats replaced rickshaws as primary transport.
Workers and volunteers struggled to plug small breaches on a giant dyke, called the DND embankment, and piled sandbags to block floodwater threatening to overflow it, witnesses said.
Civil aviation officials said the city's international airport was safe but authorities were constantly watching water levels in nearby rivers and canals. Elsewhere in the riverine nation, thousands of villages were flooded and 35 more people were reported killed since Sunday.
At least 285 people have been killed in Bangladesh in drownings, snakebites, boating accidents and house collapses since the floods began three weeks ago.
