MONSOON storms in Bangladesh and India have killed at least 41 people and unleashed devastating floods that left millions of others stranded, said officials today.

Floods are a regular menace to millions of people in low-lying Bangladesh, but experts said climate change is increasing their frequency, ferocity and unpredictability.

Relentless downpours over the past week inundated vast stretches of the northeast, with troops deployed to evacuate households cut off from neighbouring communities.

Schools are turned into relief shelters to house entire villages inundated in a matter of hours by rivers that suddenly burst their banks.

“The whole village went under water early yesterday. We all got stranded,” said Lokman, 23, whose family lives in Companiganj village.

“After waiting on the roof of our house for a whole day, a neighbour rescued us with a makeshift boat. My mother said she has never seen such floods in her entire life.”

Asma Akter, a woman rescued from the rising waters, said her family have not eaten for two days.

“The water rose so quickly we could not bring any of our things. And how can you cook when everything is underwater?”

Lightning triggered by the storms has killed at least 21 people in Bangladesh since yesterday, said police officials.

Among them are three children, aged 12-14, who were struck by lightning in the rural town of Nandail, said local police chief Mizanur Rahman.

Another four people died when landslides hit their hillside houses in the port city of Chittagong, said police inspector Nurul Islam.

At least 16 people died in India’s remote Meghalaya since Thursday, said Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, following landslides and surging rivers that submerged roads.

In Assam, more than 1.8 million people are affected by floods after five days of incessant downpours.

Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters he has instructed district officials to provide “all necessary help and relief” to those caught in the flooding.

‘The situation is bad’

Flooding worsened this morning after a temporary reprieve from the rains the previous afternoon, said Bangladesh’s Sylhet chief government administrator Mosharraf Hossain.

“The situation is bad. More than four million people have been stranded by flood water,” he said, adding that almost the entire region is without electricity.

Forecasters said the floods are set to worsen over the next two days, with heavy rains in Bangladesh and upstream in the northeast of India.

Before the rains this week, Sylhet was still recovering from its worst floods in nearly two decades last month, when 10 people were killed and four million others were affected. – AFP, June 18, 2022.