DHAKA, 21 August 2007 — Flood-hit Bangladesh has asked for millions of dollars in financial aid from foreign donors to help thousands of affected people, sources said yesterday.
Bangladesh said it had sought $150 million in assistance from foreign donor agencies following the worst floods in nearly a decade, as the toll from this year’s monsoon’s season crossed 700.
Donors have already pledged $57 million as immediate food and medical relief. Saudi Arabia alone promised $50 million plus a shipment of five planes of food and medicines.
In the last 24 hours, 23 more people had died, mostly from drowning or snakebites, the Health Ministry said.
Thousands are still being admitted to hospital each day suffering from water-borne diseases.
At least 10.5 million people were displaced or marooned by the flooding which began in late July and submerged 40 percent of the delta nation. Bangladesh’s economic growth might slow to 6.8 percent from a target of 7 percent and the budget deficit would widen due to an increase in unforeseen expenditure caused by the floods, officials said.
“The government has formally asked them to provide an additional budgetary support and food aid to tackle the post flood situation,” Mohammad Aminul Islam Bhuiyan, secretary of the Economic Relations Division, told Reuters.
“So to tackle the budget deficit we requested the development partners to provide initially $150 million, but after the final assessment we will require more assistance from them.”
An official who attended a meeting with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank on Sunday said the two organizations might provide $300 million and $150 million respectively as budgetary support over the next four months.
Officials said that initial assessments showed the worst affected sectors are agriculture, communications, education and health. The floods affected nearly 700,000 hectares of farmland, washing away mainly rice crops.
The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) said in a statement yesterday it would distribute rice to more than 800,000 people in 10 badly affected districts by the end of August. It said it had already distributed rice to 335,000 people at the start of the month.
The Agriculture Ministry has estimated that crops worth around $290 million have been damaged. The cost to infrastructure and housing is not yet known.
The country’s flood warning center said yesterday the level of the two major Himalayan rivers — the Brahmaputra, responsible for two-thirds of the river water in the country, and the Ganges — had risen again due to heavy rains in India.
Both the rivers, however, were flowing below danger levels at most points.
