Saturday, February 11, 2012

Six killed in Bangladesh flash floods

By: Our Staff Reporter | July 04, 2009, 6:29 pm |

A family of six were killed in northern Bangladesh on Saturday after heavy rains triggered landslides and flash floods that destroyed their house and left tens of thousands stranded, police said. "The six were sleeping when the wall of their mud-built house collapsed in torrential rains early Saturday morning near the northeastern town of Habiganj," local police chief Mohammad Shajahan said. Police control rooms said heavy rains also triggered flash floods in some north and northeastern districts as rivers burst their banks, stranding tens of thousands who live in low-lying areas. Bangladesh suffers annual floods, with at least a fifth of the country submerged each year. The country is criss-crossed by a network of 230 rivers, most of them tributaries of the Ganges and Brahmaputra.