More Heavy Rains, New Floods Hit Bangladesh

Heavy rains pushed floodwaters in an already devastated Bangladesh to higher levels Saturday while authorities struggled to get food and medicine to millions of people marooned by the record deluge.

In the countryside, about 185,000 people have become sick with diarrhea after drinking contaminated water and more than 110 of them have died, government health officials said.

The floodwaters, covering three-quarters of the country, have swept away houses and people, claiming more than 1,451 lives in the last month, according to newspaper reports. The government reports 630 deaths, but its figures are widely considered too low.

About 25 million people have been left homeless, and at least 700,000 people from the countryside have taken refuge in Dhaka, a city of 6 million that is half inundated by the waters of the Buriganga River.

The waters of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers, which flow from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, remained at their highest levels in 34 years, though they did not rise Saturday, according to Dhaka’s Flood Control Center.

But officials said the tributaries of the two rivers rose by a few inches Saturday. New floods have hit 12 of the country’s 64 districts where river waters began to recede last week, the officials added.

President Hussain Mohammed Ershad said Saturday that the government is having difficulty delivering medicine and food.

“We have adequate food and other relief materials,” the president told newspaper editors. “But we do not have the means of reaching . . . all the flood victims.”

In the Indian state of Assam, rains and flooding have left many people stranded, the United News of India news agency reported. State authorities have asked the federal government for $55 million for flood relief operations, it said.

In Los Angeles, the consul general of Bangladesh appealed to Californians for help in funding Red Cross relief efforts.