(Image source from: AFP)
Dhaka: Bangladesh is facing the worst floods, where at least 15 were killed and left nearly 8,00,000 homeless. Syeda Rizwana Hasan, an interim government adviser on environment, forest, and climate change said that nearly 48 lakh people were affected by the floods. She also said that she would send a message to India about the floods as there will be no man-made mistakes next time in the future.
India and Bangladesh jointly share 54 rivers and many blame India for the floods in Bangladesh. Indian High Commission Pranay Verma met the interim government chief adviser Muhammad Yunus on Thursday and shared a proposal for a high-level mechanism between both nations to handle the emergency situations in the future.
According to Md Kamrul Hasan, disaster management and relief secretary, the situation is worst in Feni, Chattogram, Cumila, Noakhali, Sylhet, Moulvibazar, Brahmanbaria, Lakshmipur, Khagrachari and Cox’s Bazar areas. On the flip side, Hindu communities came forward to help the flood-affected victims by donating money. They started a nationwide relief fund regarding this.
Rumors are circulating in the media that the floods were caused after India released water from the Dumbur dam in Tripura. The flood-affected areas share the border with Tripura. The unsustained posts on social media said that after opening the Gumti hydroelectric project. Soon many Bangladeshi handles have alleged India without any proper evidence.
Tripura Minister Ratan Lal Nath on Wednesday came out and clarified that no flood gates had been opened, instead the excess water from the Gumti reservoir had passed through the spillway after crossing the 94 m mark, which is the full capacity of the reservoir.
On Thursday MEA reported that the opening of the Dumbur dam upstream has caused the flow to the India and Bangladesh border districts followed by the heaviest rain of the year in this region. Bangladesh is catching floods only because of its downstream of the dam and also the heaviest rains in the last few days. They also explained how the low dam is located more than 120 km from the upstream border, which helps generate power into the grid, where Bangladesh draws 40 MW.
All the border dams are seeing unnatural levels of water and the Gomati continues to flow over the danger mark. Dumbur dam stands with the small rivers Raima and Sarma, the most significant rivers in Tripura also known as Meghna after flowing Bangladesh.
On August 19th, South Tripura saw the worst rainfall in a day of 288.8 mm and Agartala city recorded 233 mm of rainfall in 24 hours. Over 558 relief camps have been set up in Tripura since August 19th because of the rains.
