Bangladesh is bracing for possible major flooding in the next two days with heavy rain forecast for neighbouring India set to swell its rivers to dangerous levels, an official said Thursday.
More than 70,000 people were marooned by flooding five days ago after rivers in northern and central Bangladesh burst their banks.
Since then waters have receded and the country has escaped damage caused in northeastern India, where millions have been affected by a river which burst flood defences and inundated large areas of Bihar state.
But Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre director Saiful Hossain said officials were on high alert with downpours expected in northeastern India likely to cause problems for parts of Bangladesh.
He said Bangladesh's three major rivers — the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna — were all rising, particularly the Brahmaputra, the country's biggest.
"All three systems will rise which will affect the flooding situation, particularly in the southern central part of the country, as well as parts of the north," Hossain said.
Bangladesh is criss-crossed by a network of 230 rivers and suffers annual floods, with at least a fifth of the country submerged each year.
In July and August last year, flooding killed more than 1,000 people and some 40 percent of the country was under water, forcing millions to flee their homes.
