7 million in 'desperate need' after Bangladesh floods

More than seven million Bangladeshis are still in "desperate" need of shelter and aid after deadly floods earlier this month, the Red Cross said Tuesday.

At least 101 people were killed in the country's northeast when rivers swelled to record levels and inundated rural villages, after some of the heaviest rains in a century.

"The scale of devastation this time is so much more" than earlier floods, said Sanjeev Kafley of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

An estimated 7.2 million people were in "desperate need of shelter and emergency relief items" in the worst-hit Sylhet region, the IFRC said in a statement.

The government has sent food rations and other emergency humanitarian aid to those hit by the floods, said Nitai Dey Sarker of Bangladesh's disaster management authority.

He added that once flood waters receded further, relief workers would send corrugated iron as building material for those who had lost their homes.

Sarker said the situation had improved around Bangladesh in recent days, but many in the northeast fear more floods to come, with two-thirds of the monsoon season still ahead of them.

"We are still stuck up in the flood shelter and yet to head back home to calculate the damage," Abdul Hakim, a farmer from Sylhet, told AFP.

"The water levels in the rivers are rising again and that is very worrying," he added.

The government said nearly 200,000 people were sheltering in schools and colleges that had been closed to accommodate those forced to flee their homes.

UN urgently appeals for $110 mn for Afghanistan quake victims
Geneva (AFP) June 28, 2022 - The United Nations said Tuesday it had launched an emergency appeal to help hundreds of thousands of people in areas of Afghanistan ravaged by last week's deadly earthquake.

The 5.9-magnitude quake last Wednesday hit hardest in impoverished Paktika province in the east, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

The UN humanitarian agency said that it and its partners had launched an appeal for $110 million to urgently help 362,000 people for the next three months in the worst affected areas of Paktika and Khost provinces.

"In addition to the tragic deaths and injuries, the earthquake also destroyed homes, health facilities, schools and water networks, leaving thousands vulnerable to further harm," spokesman Jens Laerke told reporters.

He said the appeal launched Monday was part of this year's overall Humanitarian Response Plan for the impoverished and conflict-torn country.

To be fully implemented, that would require $4.4 billion, but has so far only be 34 percent funded, Laerke said.

In fact, he said, the UN programme is so underfunded that the agency and its partners have had to borrow supplies and personnel from other humanitarian programmes to assist with the immediate earthquake response.

Last Friday, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths also released $10 million from the UN's Central Emergency Relief Fund to help boost the support.

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Dozens of Suriname villages await aid following unprecedented floods
Brokopondo, Suriname (AFP) June 24, 2022
A boat meanders between the sheet metal roofs of houses in Baling Sula, one of numerous villages in central Suriname hit by devastating flooding. Heavy rainfall since January led rivers to burst their banks in the small South American nation, forcing the state energy firm, Staatsolie Power Company Suriname, to open scuppers at a hydroelectric power station in early March to avoid an even greater catastrophe. That, in turn, resulted in the flooding of several villages in Brokopondo district, arou ... read more