Floods swamp more of Bangladesh and India, with millions marooned

Rescuers scramble to reach people, as Unicef says 90% of its health facilities inundated

DHAKA • Floodwaters inundated more of Bangladesh and northeast India yesterday, officials said, as the authorities struggled to reach more than 9.5 million people stranded with little food and drinking water after days of intense rain.

Particularly heavy monsoon rain resulted in the worst floods in more than a century in some parts of low-lying Bangladesh, killing at least 69 people over the past two weeks there and in India’s Assam state.

“People are without food,” said Mr Abu Bakar, 26, a resident of hard-hit Sunamganj district in north-eastern Bangladesh.

“They are not even getting drinking water, since floodwater submerged all tube-wells.”

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina flew over some of the flood-hit areas yesterday, looking down on huge tracts covered by brown water, broken up by the occasional outcrop of land, television footage showed.