Monsoon rains bring heavy flooding to Bangladesh

The Indian subcontinent receives massive rainfall each year between June and September. That often helps farmers, but it can also cause great damage, such as here in Sariakandi, in northern Bangladesh.

The Bogra district that houses Sariakandi's 300,000 residents is situated on the Brahmaputra River, which springs from the Tibetan high plains and flows through India on its way to Bangladesh. The river is 3 kilometers (1.87 miles) wide at Sariakandi and is home to local fishermen who inhabit a number of islands now under threat of being washed away.

The German Red Cross (DRK) estimates that some 4 million people are under acute risk of losing everything they have. Authorities say that only 20,000 people have fled the disaster area so far. Most, like this woman, have decided to hunker down at home for as long as they can.

"This is the worst flooding we've seen in decades," says Arifuzzaman Bhuiyan, executive engineer at Bangladesh's disaster protection services. Most houses are uninhabitable, even those built to withstand floods are now underwater.

Many cities and villages are cut off from the outside world. Drinking water has become scarce and residents have to search far and wide to find a functioning well.

With an average annual per capita income of just $1,800 (€1,530), Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, a number of international aid organizations remain active in Bangladesh. Not all of them are there to offer short-term assistance. The German Red Cross, for instance, is involved in a project that would use long-term weather forecasting and other risk data to predict risk assessments for specific regions.