Democracy Dies in Darkness

Deadly South Asia floods leave families trapped without food and water

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June 21, 2022 at 10:46 a.m. EDT
A flood-affected family waits for help at the marooned Tarabari village, west of Gauhati, in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, on June 20. (Anupam Nath/AP)
4 min

When the floodwaters came, they swept away everything — furniture, clothes, even drums full of rice. Mainul Haque had never seen anything like it.

“We were not ready for this kind of flooding,” the 28-year-old said. “We could not save anything.”

Haque is a resident of Cholita Bari village in Bangladesh’s Sylhet district, one of the areas hit hardest by devastating monsoon floods that have swallowed villages, washed away bridges, snapped electricity lines and displaced millions.