DACCA: East Pakistan Regiment personnel were deployed and helicopters sought for carrying on rescue operations today [Oct 6] when 14 of the 22 police stations of Dinajpur district went under flood waters dislodging thousands and affecting 15 lakh people.

The Deputy Commissioner, Dinajpur, told [agency] tonight the onrush of flood waters from the overflowing Karatoa Punarbhaba, Manchan, Old Teesta and Atrai rivers have washed away six bridges, dislocated road and railway link, destroyed thousands of kutcha houses, throwing thousands of men, women and children into a “state of miseries which language fails to express”.

He stated that all the rivers in the district were rising very alarmingly.

He said the EPR personnel, aided by Police, Ansars, fire brigade and Civil Defence personnel are carrying on round-the-clock rescue operations. The Deputy Commissioner has moved the provincial Relief Department for supply of helicopters to rescue the people trapped in the flood waters in the worst hit areas.

Over 25,000 marooned people have so far been evacuated. Hundreds of destitute are reported to have taken shelter along with their belongings on bamboo machans and high roads with many still left “in the quest of a piece of dry land.”

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2018