Hard times lie ahead of the disaster responders as hundreds of thousands of people have been cut off from road communications on Saturday and could be reached out only by boat. On Saturday, within few hours in the morning, the Sangu rose so rapidly that the hilly city of Bandarban was left entirely submerged in floodwaters.
The fire service’s district office in Bandarban stood in waist-deep water and the emergency responders had to carry rescue devices on their shoulders throughout the day on Saturday. ‘It is frightening to see Sangu swell so dangerously fast,’ said Rumana Rashid, who lives in the area where the fire service office is situated.
‘It sends chills down my spine thinking why the water level was rising and not flowing downstream,’ she said. It has already been three days that Bandarban city has been detached from the rest of the country. Bandarban city dwellers were caught by surprise as they did not think that floodwaters could rise so rapidly that they would not get time to prepare for the emergency situation since the inhabitants were already running low on emergency supplies.