Flooding in the country’s southeast caused by incessant rain over the past few days is likely to get worse, weather experts said yesterday.
The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC), under Bangladesh Water Development Board, said flood in some areas of Feni, Bandarban, Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar districts may further deteriorate in the next 24 hours.
Meanwhile, the met office yesterday warned the country’s maritime ports in Cox’s Bazar, Chittagong, Mongla and Payra to stay alert due to the monsoon depression that has formed over the north part of the Bay of Bengal.
The met office also instructed the port authorities to keep the local Cautionary Signal 3 hoisted and advised all fishing boats and trawlers in the North Bay to anchor close to the coast until further notice.
They said heavy to very heavy rainfall, caused by the depression, is likely to occur at places over Khulna, Barisal and Chittagong divisions.
Meteorologist Bazlur Rashid said the current trend of rainfall in those areas would continue for the next two days.
The FFWC on yesterday evening said water level in the Brahmaputra-Jamuna river system was on the rise and was likely to remain so for the next 48 hours.
However, the Ganges-Padma river system is in the falling trend, which may continue for the next 24 hours. The Surma-Kushiyara river system is also in falling trend and will likely remain so for 48 hours.
At least 10 out of the 85 river water-level monitoring stations in the southeast part of the country recorded water flow over danger level, the FFWC said.
Of these stations, the Sangu River was recorded to be flowing 220cm above danger level in Bandarban and 120cm above danger level in Dohazari, and the Matamuhuri River was recorded to be flowing 161cm above danger level at Lama and 144cm above danger level at Chiringa in Cox’s Bazar.
Among the rest, 21 stations showed a rising trend, 60 stations registered a falling trend and the rest were stable.
In Feni, thousands of people were marooned as flood water inundated their households. The Feni met office said water level in the Muhuri-Kahua river system was flowing 10cm above danger level, damaging the river embankment in Sreechandrapur, Joypur and Jagatpur areas.
The Feni met office recorded 185mm of rainfall, the highest this year so far, in the last 24 hours.
Meanwhile, launch and speed boat services on Shimulia-Kawrakandi route in the Padma River remained suspended due to bad weather for the second day yesterday.
As weather turned rough and there was strong current in the river, the authorities concerned suspended operation of launches, speed boats, sea boats, trawlers and small boats to avoid accidents, Traffic Inspector Tofazzal Hossain at Shimulia River Port told the UNB.
The heavy weather conditions had fatal effect in Cox’s Bazar, where five people were killed and two others injured yesterday in a landslide triggered by continuous downpour.
A chunk of a hill near Radar Station collapsed on two houses near Hilltop Circuit House around 2am, killing a woman and her daughter in one house and a couple and their niece in another, Cox’s Bazar’s acting deputy commissioner Anupam Saha told the UNB.
Cox’s Bazar just recovered from a flash flood, caused, again, by heavy rainfall, that occurred about a month ago. The flash flood and landslides in Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban districts claimed at least 17 lives and left thousands of people marooned.
A better part of both the districts were inundated by flood water, disrupting communication with the rest of the country.
A few weeks before that, heavy rainfall in the northern part of the country along with India’s Assam and Meghalaya states caused floods in several districts, including Kurigram, Sunamganj, Bogra, Sylhet and Gaibandha districts in mid-June – an unusual time for such a phenomenon.
The flood caused damage to many crop fields and killed herds of cattle. It also intensified river erosion in Gaibandha and Kurigram which intensified after the flood and displaced thousands of people.