India-Bangladesh Floods: Many Killed, IAF Air-Drops Food Packets In Affected Areas

Nearly 300,000 Bangladeshis were taking refuge in emergency shelters on Saturday from floods that inundated vast areas of the low-lying South Asian country, disaster officials said. The floods were triggered by heavy monsoon rains and with the fresh fatalities, 42 people in Bangladesh and India have been killed since the start of the week, many in landslides.

"My house is completely inundated," Lufton Nahar, 60, told from a relief shelter in Feni, one of the worst-hit districts near the border with India's Tripura state. "Water is flowing above our roof. My brother brought us here by boat. If he hadn't, we would have died." 

Eleven teams of the NDRF have been deployed to carry out rescue and relief operations across Tripura. Meanwhile, the Indian Air Force said on August 24 that its helicopters air-dropped over 4,000 food packets to stranded locals in disaster-struck areas in Tripura. Chief Minister Manik Saha also expressed deep sorrow.

Monsoon rains cause widespread destruction every year but climate change is shifting weather patterns and increasing the number of extreme weather events. Highways and rail lines were damaged between the capital Dhaka and the main port city of Chittagong, making access to badly flooded districts difficult and disrupting business activity. (With Agency Inputs)