Flood death toll reaches 59 in Bangladesh, affecting over 5.4 mn people

At least 59 people, including six women and 12 children, have died in the devastating floods which affected more than five million people in 11 districts of Bangladesh, officials announced on Saturday.

The Disaster Management and Relief Ministry, while giving out updates on the flood situation, said the highest deaths were reported from Cumilla and Feni districts, both adjoining the border with Tripura in India on the northeast side, with 14 and 23 deaths respectively.

Monsoon rainfall-triggered floods in deltaic Bangladesh and upstream Indian regions have wreaked havoc in the country for about two weeks resulting in deaths and displacement of humans and cattle, and loss of property posing a huge administrative challenge to the newly installed interim government amid a political transition.

Bangladesh is crisscrossed by more than 200 rivers, 54 of them being trans-boundary rivers with upper riparian India, in four major basins. A depression (a system that brings in copious rainfall)