Local officials said on Saturday that monsoon rains in India and Bangladesh affected at least 59 dead and millions from flooding.

Floods regularly threaten millions of people in Bangladesh, a lowly country. But experts say climate change is increasing in frequency, severity and unpredictability.

Much of the northeastern part of the country is under water. Troops were sent to evacuate the isolated people, and several schools were turned into emergency centers to house the residents of the flooded villages within hours.

“Friday morning the whole village was flooded and we were all isolated,” said Lokman, whose family lives in the village of Companyganj.

“After waiting on the roof of our house all day, a neighbor rescued us on a makeshift boat. My mother said she had never seen such a flood in her life,” the 23-year-old said.

two days without eating

Another woman rescued from the flood, Asma Akter, said her family had not eaten for two days.

“The water rose so fast that we could not take any of our belongings with us,” he complained.

At least 21 people have been killed by lightning during heavy rains in Bangladesh since Friday, police told AFP.

Local police chief Mizanur Rahman said three young children, aged between 12 and 14, were killed in the town of Nandail.

In addition, 4 people lost their lives in landslides triggered by storms in the port city of Chittagong.

In neighboring India, at least 16 people were killed by landslides and flooding on roads in the state of Meghalaya (northeast) on Thursday (16), that state’s prime minister Conrad Sangma tweeted.

The state’s Disaster Response Agency said more than 2.6 million people were affected by the flooding after five consecutive days of rain in the state of Assam.

At least 18 people have died in floods and landslides across the state since Thursday, and about 7,500 were rescued on Saturday, the agency said.

The prime minister of that state, Himanta Biswa Sarma, told the media that he had asked the district authorities to provide “all necessary aid and rescue equipment” to people affected by the heavy rains.

Flooding in Bangladesh caused the country’s third international airport, located in northeastern Sylhet, to close on Friday. Mosharraf Hossain, chief executive of the Sylhet regional government, told AFP that the situation in the region worsened on Saturday morning after an increase in rainfall yesterday afternoon.

“The situation is bad. More than four million people have been displaced by the flooding,” he said, adding that almost the entire area was without electricity.

According to weather forecasts, flooding in Bangladesh and northeast India will worsen over the next two days due to heavy rains.