Bangladesh floods toll seen to exceed $500 million

October 16, 2000
Web posted at: 7:27 PM HKT (1127 GMT)

DHAKA, Bangladesh (Reuters) -- Floods which have ravaged southwestern Bangladesh will cause damage or losses of at least $500 million to crops, fish farms, property and infrastructure, according to estimates on Monday.

These include losses worth $180 million to standing rice crops, vegetables and fruit gardens, based on an independent survey by Novartis (Bangladesh) Limited, supplier of agricultural inputs.

Actual losses would not be known until the floods recede from all affected districts, Novartis official Farook Hossain noted.

The three-week flooding, triggered by heavy rains and aggravated by floodwaters rushing down from West Bengal in India, killed more than 130 Bangladeshis.

More than two million people were left homeless and many more were marooned or beyond the reach of relief operators. Government officials said the flood levels had shown a "marked improvement" in all areas except in Satkhira district where they began dropping very slowly on Monday.

"Vast areas are still under water, which we don't expect to

recede in the next one week," said an official by telephone from Satkhira.

Conditions in other districts had improved steadily, exposing the full picture of devastation, he said.

Local officials said that besides crops, fish farming in the southwest which accounts for over 75 percent of the country's $300 million annual fish exports, mostly shrimps, suffered major damage. Most of the fish farms had been washed away.

Even where floodwater levels have dropped, people faced a problem of water-logging, one disaster management official said. Water had been held in by embankments designed to protect fish farms and crops from saline water from the Bay of Bengal.

This had forced nearly a quarter million flood victims to remain in shelters, officials said. Some people who went back to their devastated homes faced a lack of food, drinking water and medicine, they said.

The authorities are trying to clear passage for the stagnant water by digging canals and cutting through embankment walls.

"We are in a dilemma, the water logging seems to be the biggest problem in the flood's immediate aftermath," one official in Satkhira said on Monday.

Abul Basher, an executive with Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters Association, said Bangladesh's shrimp exports would be seriously hit following the floods, which struck the country's usually dry southwest for the first time in more than 50 years.

"The loss in shrimp exports alone would be around $230 million," he told Reuters.

Bangladesh earned $322.5 million from shrimp exports in 1999-2000 (July-June), making it the country's third biggest export after readymade garments and jute.

The shrimp export target for the current fiscal year had been $350 million, Bashar said.

Over 1,100 km (675 miles) of roads were damaged by the floods, along with schools and other infrastructure which would need at least $100 million to rebuild, local government officials said.

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