After some of the heaviest rain Bangladesh has suffered in years, floods
and landslides have killed at least 70 people, and left another 200,000
homeless. Eighteen inches of rain are said to have fallen
in the port of Chittagong in just 24 hours.
At least 15 people died there, while another 30 perished in Bandarban to
the south-east. The authorities fear
more people may be trapped under mud, and rescue efforts are continuing to
find and free them.
In Sylhet in the north-east of the country, house roofs are three feet
beneath the water, and local people have had to scramble up onto high ground,
or take refuge in boats. Districts
around the capital, Dhaka, have also been inundated.
A monsoon flood in Bangladesh is said to have killed nearly 29,000 in
1974, though some of these may have perished in the famine that followed. It happened less than four years after the deadliest
cyclone in history killed perhaps half a million of its people.
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