Weeks of severe flooding and landslides across Nepal, India and Bangladesh on Monday, July 20, 2020 left more than 200 dead, with high waters continuing to threaten communities.
According to Nepal’s National Disaster Agency, in Nepal, the natural disasters triggered by heavy monsoon rainfall have killed 114 people since June 12, with 48 people missing.
However, the vast majority of deaths occurred due to landslides. Most of Nepal’s rivers had seen a further rise in water levels due to incessant rainfall since Saturday.
According to the agency’s spokesperson, Janardan Sharma, the agency have so far issued flood alerts in settlements near all major rivers across the country.
In Bangladesh, at least 21 people have died, including 16 children, and more than 2.6 million others were displaced.
According to the agency’s management official, across the border, in the Eastern Indian state of Assam, 84 people have so far died with 542,908 others displaced or experiencing damage to their livelihoods since May 22.
Bangladesh’s Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre predicted the situation may aggravate with the major rivers set to rise further in the next seven days.
According to Bangladesh’s Disaster Management Ministry spokesperson, Tasmin Azmiri, eighteen out of Bangladesh’s 64 administrative districts have been submerged by floodwaters, prompting more than 62,000 people to move to about 1,443 shelters.
Azmiri added that emergency supplies had been dispatched in the affected areas in the North of Bangladesh.
In India, the floods also reached the states Bihar and Jharkhand where local media reported 15 deaths since the weekend.
More than 100 wild animals died in the flooding at India’s Kaziranga national park, home to the world’s largest population of one-horned rhinos.
Bangladesh’s Water Development Board official Arifuzzaman Bhuiyan, said the flooding, which began in late June after heavy monsoon rain in parts of Bangladesh and India, was likely to start receding after a week.
South Asia experiences flooding almost every year during the monsoon season between June and September.
