No major summer flooding expected in Bangladesh

 Bangladesh's flood warning center said Tuesday that there is no possibility of heavy flooding in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country despite steady rains in parts of Bangladesh, which has led to further elevated rivers and canals, and fears of widespread major flooding.
"There is no possibility at all that there will be any major widespread or medium-scale flooding during summer this year," Sazzad Hossain, spokesman at the Flood Forecasting and Warning Center (FFWC) under Bangladesh Water Development Board told Xinhua Tuesday.
He said flood situation in the country's north-west region may remain steady in the next 72 hours.
An official at the control room under Disaster Management Ministry of Bangladesh said flood situation in at 12 districts including Sylhet, Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Netrokona, Rangpur, Jamalpur, Nilphamari and Sherpur in the central and northwestern regions have already been deteriorated, affecting a large number of people.
More fresh areas in the districts were inundated Tuesday, marooning hundreds of thousands of people, said the control room official who preferred to be unnamed.
He claimed that the government has already sent huge relief materials for affected people although media report hundreds of thousands of flood-hit people are faced with an acute shortage of food and drinking water.
Many in the affected areas have reportedly taken shelter on the highlands and embankments.
The FFWC spokesman, however, said more low-lying Dhaka surrounding areas are likely to be inundated as the rivers around the capital city may rise in the next 72 hours.
Plight to millions of people in Bangladesh mount as the low- lying South Asian country experiences almost every year summer small or big floods, as monsoon rains that sweep the subcontinent from June to September combine with snow melt from the Himalayas in major rivers that run through the country to the Bay of Bengal.
There was no exception during this summer season.
All the major river system are in rising trend except Ganges, a trans-boundary river of Asia which flows through India and Bangladesh, Hossain said.
He said Himalayan snow melt will unlikely to rise ample at the fag end of summer to produce floods.
Experts said Bangladesh, bordering the Bay of Bengal, has become more vulnerable in recent time to climate change related problems like cyclones, flooding, as its capacity to protect its people and land is feeble.
In 2007, two rounds of floods in Bangladesh killed more than 1, 000 people.