Heavy rains in northern Bangladesh killed eight people, officials said Tuesday bringing the nationwide death toll to 30 in this year's monsoon led flooding. "At least eight more people died of flood related accidents including drowning and houses collapsing in the last couple of days," dpa quoted disaster management officer Saiful Islam as saying. Rescuers said they were evacuating thousands of flood stricken people from fragile houses in areas vulnerable to flood damages. "The work of providing safe shelters to more than a quarter of a million people has to be done on a war footing because the monsoon had set in raising fears of more heavy showers," said Samarendra Karmakar of the national flood monitoring centre. Five people were drowned as a boat capsized overnight in the northern Sirajganj district swamped by the river Brahmaputra flowing above the danger level. Three others were killed under the roof of their flimsy house that collapsed during torrential rains in the eastern Manikganj district, police sources said. Privately-run TV stations showing clips of the inundations said more than a quarter of the country was under water as more rivers rose during the past 24 hours. The ATN news channel quoting local met office said flood waters were set to engulf the capital Dhaka and its suburbs within the next three days. Scores of people are killed routinely in Bangladesh every year due to floods, lightnings and collapsing mud homes in the monsoon from July to September.
