After a three-day break, heavy rain began inside Bangladesh, including in the catchment areas of the Brahmaputra, Meghna and Teesta, while forecasters predicted that the flooding in the central districts would intensify, especially in Dhaka, over the next three days.

The Bay of Bengal remained swelled barring the draining of river water and the additional water added from the fresh spell of rain until Friday, which would create more surface runoff, said forecasters.

‘The onrush of water from upstream would continue to deteriorate flooding in central districts,’ Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre sub-divisional engineer Sarder Udoy Raihan told.   

Over 10,000 families got stranded in water as rivers around Dhaka continued to flow above their danger marks, affecting more or less all the five upazilas in Dhaka district.

Between Monday and Tuesday, the River Bangshi spilled its banks at many places, overtaking many areas in eight unions in Savar, leaving 10,000 families stranded.

Over 170 villages are now affected by flooding in five of Dhaka’s six upazilas, according to the district’s relief and rehabilitation office.

Flood has affected nearly 1.50 lakh people in Dhaka.

‘Heavy rains through Tuesday left us frightened. The flood is definitely going to get worse,’ said AFM Feroj Mahamud, upazila nirbahi officer, Dohar, the worst flood-affected areas in Dhaka.

Seven of the eight unions in Dohar are completely under water while the other one is partly inundated, said Feroj.

The road communication between Dhaka and Dohar was disrupted because the road now remains submerged by floodwaters.

Flooding worsened in Dhaka metropolitan area while more areas went under water in Khilgaon, Shabujbag, Mugda and Demra.

‘The situation is turning worse every day with water level steadily increasing,’ said Akbar Hossain, councillor, 75 no ward, Dhaka South City Corporation.

Over 30,000 people were affected by flooding that affected three-fourths of the ward, said Akbar.

Atikur Rahman, a ward councillor at Demra, said that floodwater made a mess of his ward’s road network with the main market submerged completely in water for the last several days.

In Tangail, heavy downpour worsened flooding, with fresh areas going under water on Tuesday.

The Balu, Shitalakkhya and Turag rivers and Tongi Khal continued to flow above their danger marks around Dhaka.   

A FFWC bulletin said that the Teesta and Dharla may swell rapidly by Wednesday morning with the possibility of the Teesta crossing its danger mark at Dalia.

The FFWC bulletin said that the flood situation in districts such as Dhaka, Tangail, Manikganj, Munshiganj, Faridpur, Madaripur, Chandpur, Rajbari, Shariatpur, Dhaka, Narayanganj, Brahmanbaria, Sirajganj and Natore may remain the same.

‘The overall situation does not look good. If it continues to rain as it rained on Tuesday the deluge would overtake entire Bangladesh soon,’ said Ripon Kumar, a businessman at Mirzapur Bazar, Tangail.

Bangladesh Metrological Department recorded the country’s highest rainfall of 76mm in the last 12 hours in Feni.

The BMD predicted light to moderate rain at many places in all eight divisions until Wednesday morning.

‘The rain would continue over the next three days,’ said meteorologist Abdul Mannan.

New Age correspondent in Shariatpur reported that over 10,000 families got stranded as flooding worsened in the district until Tuesday.

Flooding was particularly worse in Naria upazila in Shariatpur where many roads got submerged by flood waters.

Authorities were forced to shut down the ferry service through one of the three terminals at Mawa because of heavy current in the River Padma.

Several shops and a mosque were devoured by erosion at Mawa on Tuesday.

Erosion continued in many flood-affected central and northern districts as huge onrush of water continued from upstream ever since the flooding began on June 27.

Several thousand families have lost their homes to erosion and tens of thousands came to shelters after their houses got submerged in floodwaters.

Food and drinking water crises gripped flood shelters where the risk of waterborne diseases is also high.

Health emergency control room said that 129 people were killed by flood-related causes.

The disaster management and relief ministry said that over 4.7 million people were affected by the flood in 31 districts and 41 were killed.