Rescue workers reach Bangla landslide victims Thursday, 17 June 2010 06:07

COX’S BAZAAR: Bangladeshi rescue workers battled blocked roads and floods yesterday to distribute emergency aid to remote communities hit by landslides that have killed 55 people. Dry food rations and water purification tablets were given to thousands of people left homeless in the country’s southeastern tip, which borders Myanmar, after the worst rains in decades struck Tuesday, officials said.

“The death toll in my district is now 50 and at least 34 people are injured, some critically,” Cox’s Bazaar district administrator Giasuddin Ahmed said. Another five people were killed in neighbouring Bandarban district, police said.

“It was the worst rain in three decades and was particularly devastating as 12 centimetres (4.5 inches) of rain fell in just three hours,” Ahmed said, adding that hundreds of houses had been destroyed.

Flash floods in neighbouring Myanmar have left about 40 people missing in an area near the border, an official in the military-ruled country said.

“The water level rose because of torrential rain,” the official, who did not want to be named, said.

“About 40 people were missing and about 2,000 people were relocated to nearby schools because of the flood in Maungdaw town in Rakhine state,” he said.

afp

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