Climate change is increasing frequency, ferocity and unpredictability of floods, say experts
\nDHAKA
\nMonsoon storms in Bangladesh and India have killed at least 41 people and unleashed devastating floods that left millions of others stranded, officials said on Saturday.
\nFloods are a regular menace to millions of people in low-lying Bangladesh, but experts say climate change is increasing their frequency, ferocity and unpredictability.
\nRelentless downpours over the past week have inundated vast stretches of Bangladesh\u2019s northeast, with troops deployed to evacuate households cut off from neighbouring communities.
\nSchools have been turned into relief shelters to house entire villages inundated in a matter of hours by rivers that suddenly burst their banks.
\n\u201cThe whole village went under water by early Friday and we all got stranded,\u201d said Lokman, whose family lives in Companiganj village.
\n\u201cAfter waiting a whole day on the roof of our home, a neighbour rescued us with a makeshift boat. My mother said she has never seen such floods in her entire life,\u201d the 23-year-old added.
\nAsma Akter, another woman rescued from the rising waters, said her family had not been able to eat for two days.
\n\u201cThe water rose so quickly we couldn\u2019t bring any of our things,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cAnd how can you cook anything when everything is underwater?\u201d
\nLightning triggered by the storms has killed at least 21 people around the South Asian nation since Friday afternoon, police officials told news Agency.
\nAmong them were three children aged between 12 and 14 who were struck by lightning on Friday in the rural town of Nandail, said local police chief Mizanur Rahman.
\nAnother four people died when landslides hit their hillside homes in the port city of Chittagong, police inspector Nurul Islam told
\nAFP.
\nAt least 16 people have been killed since Thursday in India\u2019s remote Meghalaya, the state\u2019s chief minister Conrad Sangma wrote on Twitter, after landslides and surging rivers that submerged roads.
\nNext door in Assam state, more than 1.8 million people have been affected by floods after five days of incessant downpours.
\nAssam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters he had instructed district officials to provide \u201call necessary help and relief\u201d to those caught in the flooding.
\nFlooding in Bangladesh worsened on Saturday morning after a temporary reprieve from the rains the previous afternoon, Sylhet region chief government administrator Mosharraf Hossain told AFP.
\n\u201cThe situation is bad. More than four million people have been stranded by flood water,\u201d Hossain said, adding that nearly the entire region was without electricity.
\nThe flooding forced Bangladesh\u2019s third-largest international airport in Sylhet to shut down on Friday.
\nAround the regional capital, residents waded through waist-deep water along roads next to partially submerged stuck vehicles.
\nForecasters said the floods were set to worsen over the next two days with heavy rains in Bangladesh and upstream in India\u2019s northeast.
\nBefore this week\u2019s rains, the Sylhet region was still recovering from its worst foods in nearly two decades late last month, when at least 10 people were killed and four million others were affected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Climate change is increasing frequency, ferocity and unpredictability of floods, say experts DHAKA Monsoon storms in Bangladesh and India have killed at least 41 people and unleashed devastating floods that left millions of others stranded, officials said on Saturday. Floods are a regular menace to millions of people in low-lying Bangladesh, but experts say climate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[432,612,195],"class_list":{"0":"post-266801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-bangladesh","9":"tag-floods","10":"tag-india"},"yoast_head":"\n