Monsoon floodwaters leave 11 dead, 500,000 stranded in Bangladesh
"It appears that the flood pressure has somewhat eased over the last 24 hours with less water coming from across the border," said an official in the southern district of Noakhali.
Disaster management officials said about a quarter of the country, or 15 out of 64 administrative districts, especially those along the border with India, were under water.
India opened floodgates on the common rivers, including the Brahmaputra, Meghna, Jamuna and Ganges, which is called the Padma in Bangladesh, sending torrents downstream to Bangladesh. Many of Bangladesh's more than 150 rivers originate in the Himalayas and flow through India.
Floods are a regular feature in the two countries during the July-September monsoon period and often they become treacherous, claiming thousands of lives. The current floods have so far killed 11 people, including eight who died from diarrhoea, marooned about half-a-million people, inundated some 250,000 acres of mostly rice fields, and cut roads to remote areas.
The Government and relief agencies were distributing food, medicine and other essentials among those taking refuge on high lands and buildings. Officials could not give an exact number of people in the shelters but said some had left for their still partly flooded homes, hoping the water would recede soon.
"They are going back...but may return again," said one official in western Jessore district. He said it was not food but a shortage of drinking water that was the most serious problem facing millions of people in the flooded areas.
Bangladesh's worst floods in 1988 killed more than 3,500 people and washed away more than two million tonnes of rice crop, according to official estimates. In the early 1970s Bangladeshis installed tens of thousands of wells for drinking water, trying to avoid diarrhoea and other stomach ailments.
But over the last few years Bangladesh health authorities have sealed off two-thirds of the country's wells, saying ground sources have been contaminated with harmful arsenic.
The Government now advise Bangladesh's 130 million people to collect rain water and preserve it for drinking throughout the year, as an inexpensive alternative.
