The UN yesterday said it will seek international aid to help rehabilitate Bangladesh after month-long floods washed away rice crops, villages and livestock and killed more than 450 people in this impoverished nation.
Torrential monsoon rains and melting snow from the Himalayas have engulfed two-thirds of Bangladesh and large chunks of neighboring India, as well as causing deaths in Pakistan and Nepal.
Landslides, house collapses, drowning, disease and bites from snakes that slither through the floodwaters have brought the death toll across South Asia to 1,338 since mid-last month, and it is expected to surpass last year's figure of 1,500 for the annual rainy season.
PHOTO: EPA
Flooding and related problems have killed 768 people in India, 113 in Nepal and five in Pakistan, according to reports by officials.
In Bangladesh, a delta nation of 140 million people, the floods have killed 452 people and marooned or displaced up to 30 million people, the Food and Disaster Ministry said yesterday.
The worst floods in six years have overwhelmed this nation as relief workers struggled to get supplies to millions of people crammed into temporary shelters in schools, on boats or river embankments.
"The United Nations ... will embark on preparations for an international appeal in response to the severe flooding in Bangladesh," a UN press release issued in Dhaka said.
The formal appeal will go out within weeks after an assessment of the damage and need, said the statement, issued a day after Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia said the nation couldn't cope alone with the devastation.
"We need international assistance to rebuild roads, schools and bridges washed away by the floods," Zia said, while visiting flood-affected people in eastern Chandpur district on Wednesday.
She urged Bangladeshis to "be brave and resilient in this time of distress."
Most are doing just that.
Galib Mahmud, in a crisp white schoolshirt, waded barefoot through waist-deep, filthy floodwaters, carrying a backpack on his head and dangling his black shoes in a string bag as he trekked across the flooded streets of Dhaka on Wednesday.
"I have to go to school," the 12-year-old said.
While many public schools have canceled classes and converted the buildings into shelters, private institutions like Galib's remained open. Up to 125,000 displaced people were living in 160 flood shelters in Dhaka.
More than 40 percent of Dhaka, a city of 10 million, is flooded, with residents moving in with relatives in drier areas, taking refuge in shelters at multi-storied buildings, or camping out on raised sidewalks along major roads.
Others have stacked sandbags or layers of bricks at entrances to their homes and businesses to prevent water seeping through.
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
‘RADICALLY DIFFERENT’: The Kremlin said no accord would be reached if the new deal with Kyiv’s input did not remain within the limits fixed by the US and Russia in August Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida this weekend, but Russia on Friday accused him and his EU backers of seeking to “torpedo” a US-brokered plan to stop the fighting. Today’s meeting to discuss new peace proposals comes amidst Trump’s intensified efforts to broker an agreement on Europe’s worst conflict since World War II. The latest plan is a 20-point proposal that would freeze the war on its current front line, but open the door for Ukraine to pull back troops from the east, where demilitarized buffer zones could be created, according to details revealed by
RSS