(Cox’s Bazar) Torrential rains in Bangladesh caused landslides that killed nine people, including eight Rohingya refugees, and forced thousands to flee, police and government officials said Wednesday.
Schools have been transformed into shelters for those who had to abandon their homes due to rising waters. In the northern regions, more than a million people have been stranded.
Bangladesh, a low-lying country of some 170 million people, is among the most vulnerable to climate change according to the Global Climate Risk Index (CRI).
The intensification of the rainy season and the acceleration of the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas are disrupting the level of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, two sacred rivers which form a crucial delta for the country in Bangladesh, scientists have warned.
Every year, monsoon rains cause widespread destruction, but experts say climate change is increasing the number of extreme events.
The victims of the landslides were in the district of Cox’s Bazar (South-East).
Eight of those killed were Rohingya refugees from neighboring Myanmar and the ninth was from Bangladesh, said Amir Jafar, a police official responsible for security in the refugee camps.
“They were sleeping in their shelters when heavy rains caused landslides in five places in the camps during the night,” Mr. Jafar told AFP. “They were buried under the mud.”
Hundreds of refugees have been evacuated from risky regions, he added, specifying that “the rain continues”.
About a million Rohingya live in makeshift shelters in camps set up on the cleared slopes of small forested hills where landslides pose a constant threat.
“At least 700,000 people have been stranded by flash floods and heavy rains in Sylhet district and another 400,000 in neighboring Sunamganj district,” Abu Ahmed Siddique, head of Sylhet district, told AFP. the northeast of the country.
According to local government official Sheikh Russel Hasan, “more than 17,000 people have been moved to shelters in Sylhet district alone” and rivers are still in flood.
In 2022, Sylhet was hit by severe floods which killed around a hundred people and left more than seven million people homeless.
