Figure 1.
Credit: PAVEL RAHMAN/AP
More than 20 million people are homeless and 300 have died from drowning, snakebite, and disease in the worst monsoon flooding to hit Bangladesh in many years.
The United Nations warned of a humanitarian crisis, and the Red Cross launched an emergency appeal as two thirds of the country and almost half the capital, Dhaka, were flooded.
Local relief officials warn that stagnant floodwater polluted with raw sewage could lead to epidemics of waterborne diseases such as dysentery, typhoid, and cholera and that a lack of access to clean water has already caused outbreaks of diarrhoea; 3500 mobile medical teams have been deployed across the country in response.