FFWC warns of heavy rain, fresh flood

Though some major rivers were flowing below their respective danger levels in the northern regions on Sunday, but vast areas of lowlands still remained under water.
The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC) has, however, predicted another spell of heavy rains from Tuesday in the Ganges-Brahmaputra basins, intensifying the fears for further flooding of the northern rivers.
The Jamuna and Gur rivers continued to swell over their banks in Bogura and Natore respectively for the last three days while other northern rivers such as the Dharla, Karatoa, Ghaghot and Brahmaputra were flowing very close to their danger marks until Sunday evening.
The water level was rising in 48 points across the country while it was falling in 47 points, said the FFWC.
"Some of the northern rivers might cross their danger levels at the end of this week or early next week," FFWC executive engineer Arifuzzaman Bhuiyan told the FE.
Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) also said that a low has been formed over the northeast Bay which might cause heavy rains and the sea would remain rough due to its influence.
Indian Meteorological Department also predicted heavy rains in West Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya states of the country over the next three days which might raise the water levels of northern and north-eastern regions of Bangladesh.
Meteorologist Dr Sadequl Alam said that weather is behaving unusual to some extent this year, causing many spells of flood.
He said that no monsoon low was formed in July, but then six to seven monsoon lowswere formed in August and September.Usually, three monsoon lows form in July, he added.
It would be first low to form in September and another one might form before the end of the month, he said.
However, the farmers in the low-lying areas of the northern districts are in a peril amid inundation of their Aman and early winter crops by the flood water.
It would be the fourth spell of flooding the northern regions were experiencing since June 26 this year, according to the FFWC.
In the last three spells of flood between June 26 and August 31, a total of 0.258 million hectares of croplands were damaged causing a loss worth around Tk 15 billion, according to the agriculture ministry.
More than 262 people have also died from the three-month long flooding, according to the health ministry.

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