By DPA
Dhaka : The death toll from floods in Bangladesh approached 160 Tuesday as more people were drowned in the past 24 hours in raging waters which trapped millions of villagers, officials said.
Rescue workers said most deaths were caused by drowning in the rivers in the northern hinterlands, where more than 3,000 villages have been cut off for over a week.
“Falling water levels in the Brahmaputra and the Teesta rivers eased the floods in the northern Rangpur region but the water moving downstream swelled up the Ganges and the Meghna in the central and southern regions,” said Saiful Hossain of the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre.
Hossain said the number of people directly affected by the floods would easily exceed 15 million, with over two million families living outdoors on embankments and highways.
Troops and civilian volunteers were bracing for gushing floodwaters that threatened to engulf the airport and other strategic installations in Dhaka.
Bangladeshis routinely suffer from rainstorms sparking floods and mudslides that destroy housing, roads and ferry links every year.
The interim government has sought over 200,000 tonnes of rice from India for tiding over shortages of the staple diet because of crop losses, sources said.