The death toll from tropical flooding climbed to 71 Saturday as surging waters from rivers submerged more towns and villages across Bangladesh with emergency aid still to reach remote settlements, officials said, according to DPA. Aid workers said tens of thousands of unfed people were fighting a grim battle for survival in the country's northern and eastern districts which were worst hit in the current spell of devastating seasonal floods. Earlier reports said millions of people were living outdoors since torrential rains washed away homes and rice seedlings across Bangladesh in the past one week. Civil defence officials said swelling rivers overnight inundated more areas. The official death toll from the swirling flood waters reached 71 from 60 with 11 more people dying from flood related causes. The Disaster Management Office said over half a million people were made homeless in the deluge in the northern farming hinterlands but less than a quarter of the shelter seekers could be accommodated in the relief centres. Rising rivers have touched off severe flooding disrupting road transports, shutting down schools and snapping ferry and train links, the national flood monitoring centre said. Weather experts said if the country's three major rivers, Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna continued to rise at the same time the flood situation could aggravate.
