Deadly Floods hit India and Bangladesh

Millions of people across India and Bangladesh have been affected by raging floods and landslides that left more than 100 people dead and entire communities devastated.

The South Asian nations, home to more than 1.3 billion people, have been particularly badly hit by the rains, prompting some of the worst flooding in the region in years, as extreme weather events become increasingly frequent due to the climate crisis.

In India, at least 48 people have died since June 14, after heavy rains battered the northeastern state of Assam, according to its disaster management authority, triggering landslides and causing river banks to swell.

More than 5.5 million people have been affected in the state alone, the authority added.

Assam’s Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, on Tuesday visited one of the 1,687 relief camps, housing more than 260,000 displaced people in the state.Most victims lived in areas with flood risks every year, if the monsoon rains.

India will soon launch a portal for the affected people to register their livestock loss and other damages caused by floodwaters. A flood relief package too will be announced shortly.

Video broadcast on local television showed people in affected cities wading waist deep in muddy water and streets turned into rivers, with vehicles submerged underwater.

In neighboring Bangladesh, flooding-related incidents, including electrocutions and landslides, have killed at least 22 people. As many as 4 million people, including 1.6 million children, have been stranded by the flash floods, according to UNICEF.

Schools have been forced to close and exams have been canceled, further impacting their education following months of closures due to the Corona-virus pandemic.

Extreme weather events in South Asia are becoming increasingly frequent due to the climate crisis, with temperatures in parts of India and Pakistan reaching record levels during a heatwave in April and May 2023.

Scientists said the climate crisis had made the possibility of record-breaking heatwave hitting India and Pakistan.

A 2022 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said they had medium confidence that heatwaves and humid stress would become more intense and frequent, and that annual and summer monsoon precipitation will increase.

CNN / ABC Flash Point News 2023.