Death toll in Bangladesh flood shoots up to 210

Dhaka, Aug 9 (UNI) With 18 more deaths, the death toll in Bangladesh flood rose to 210 today.

A release from the Food and Disaster Management Ministry said nearly 9.9 million people of more than 2 million families have been affected by the floodwaters in 38 districts.

Some 3,34,085 people have taken shelter in 1,317 flood shelter centres.

With the recession of floodwater, diarrhoea broke out at many places due to lack of pure drinking water.

A doctor at International Center for Diarrheoal Disease Research, Bangladesh (I CDDR,B) told UNI that some 700 patients affected by diarrhoea have been admitted to the hospital in the past 24 hours till yesterday midnight. In the past one week, he said 4397 patients were admitted.

A bulletin of the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre said major rivers like Jamuna, Padma and Meghan receded but were flowing above their danger marks today morning.

The floods caused damages to nearly 8,00,000 houses, standing crops on 13,00,000 and wrecked embankments, roads and bridges.

Bangladesh's development partners and donor agencies assured assistance to help overcome the floods and post-flood situation when they would be knowing the exact losses in terms of money and the requirement of the government.

Today, Denmark has allocated DKK 1.0 million through the ''Save the Children'' for providing humanitarian assistance to the flood victims. The assistance includes, among others, providing food, non-food items and cash to the flood affected people, supplying water-purifying tablets, erecting shelters and distribution of educational materials.

UNI