The bodies of water have isolated four million people in the Bangladeshi areas of Sunamganj and Sylhet, media reports in the country. Many millions are also affected by the fact that the electricity grid has collapsed in some places.
This year’s monsoon season began this week, and the region is then used to torrential rain. But this year’s weather is among the worst noted. “Bangladesh is in a climate emergency, a reminder that action on climate change is urgent,” the UNDP country office wrote on Twitter.
On Friday, the military was deployed to assist with evacuations. But the situation is feared to get worse this week, as water levels in the river Tista are predicted to continue to rise. Tista flows from northeastern India down into Bangladesh. But where it joins the Bramaputra River, there is still a long way to go before the outflows into the Bay of Bengal, so more regions could be affected as the water masses continue south.