Dhaka – Flash floods and landslides triggered by monsoon rains have killed at least 50 people in Bangladesh in the past week, officials said on Sunday, with tens of thousands displaced from their homes. Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation criss-crossed by rivers, is highly vulnerable to floods and landslides during the monsoon season, but scientists say climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. For the last few days, army and border guard personnel have been ferrying food, drinking water and other essential supplies by boat to communities cut off because of heavy flooding in the country’s southeastern districts. As many as 50 people have died in the worst-affected Chattogram district in the past week, including 29 who were buried by landslides, divisional commissioner Mohammed Ziauddin told a news wire by phone. “Two individuals are still missing,” he said. Some 35,000 people have been forced to seek shelter in government-run centres, he added. Among those caught up in the disaster in Chattogram was Mohammed Forkan, whose family could not fulfil his wish to be buried beside his parents because the local cemetery was submerged under chest-deep water.
