Thousands of people living along the Muhuri basin in Feni district witnessed something strange waking up on Monday morning when the trans-boundary river swelled by nearly 11 feet in just three hours by 9:00am.
Bangladesh鈥檚 Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre, in its special bulletin issued at 8:25pm on Sunday with the warning of a flash flood along Teesta basin in northern districts did not had any warning against the disaster impending on the south-eastern Bangladesh.
It rained moderate to heavy in the river鈥檚 catchment spreading between India鈥檚 Tripura and Bangladesh in the preceding 24 hours before the river started rising, not enough to cause such a massive change in its water level overnight.
鈥楾here was not enough rain to have unleashed such a large volume of water,鈥� said Sarder Udoy Raihan, executive engineer at the FFWC.
Forecasters at the FFWC could only watch as the Muhuri swelled another 119cm between 9:00am and 3:00pm on Monday, flowing just 56cm below the danger level, setting off a flash flood warning for today.
Mostofa Kamal Palash, an independent weather forecaster based in Canada, pointed out as a source of the water India arbitrarily opening its Kalashi barrage.
The reason could be, he wrote on a Facebook post, India emptying the barrage鈥檚 storage to tackle the next wet spell likely in just three days.
鈥楾he Joint Rivers Commission, Bangladesh can look into the matter,鈥� Palash wrote.
The sudden release of water was the last thing Bangladesh expected with many embankments in Parshuram and Fulgazi barely standing with holes dug in them in the latest spell of flash flood early this month. Huge volumes of water gushed through the breaches to engulf low lying areas, including farmland.聽
鈥榃e did not have a respite for even 10 days. Yet another flash flood hits us,鈥� said Sajeda Akter, a resident of Sreepur of Fulgazi.
Originating in the southern part of Gomati district in Tripura of India, the Muhuri River, with contribution from tributaries in the Shahebmura hill, flows west to enter Bangladesh through Parshuram. The river merges with the Feni River flowing 35km downstream. The Muhuri and Feni rivers have a combined catchment area of 2,413 square kilometres, which makes them two of the smallest rivers.
Sudden releases of massive volumes of water on the narrow catchment of the Muhuri could mean serious devastation downstream.聽聽聽
India opening its barrages built on many transboundary rivers has been the bone of contention for decades. India almost routinely opens the Gajoldoba barrage without warning Bangladesh whenever the upper riparian nation chooses to do so.
The Teesta rapidly swelled on Sunday after India opened floodgates at the Gajoldoba barrage on Saturday afternoon.
The FFWC forecasters said that they did not have any information shared by India on the Kalashi barrage, which is about 50km upstream from the Indian border with Bangladesh.
Without having information of rain in the catchment of the Muhuri and its water level data, predicting flash flood events is an almost impossible task, the forecasters said.
The FFWC had rainfall info on only one station at Belonia in the river鈥檚 basin from India. Belonia received 41.8mm of rain in the 24 hours ending at 9:00am on Monday.
Parshuram in Bangladesh, on the other hand, experienced 60.5 mm of rain over the same reporting cycle, the FFWC said.
The FFWC warned that the Feni district was approaching yet another flash flood with a low pressure likely to form over the Bay of Bengal on July 24, potentially bringing up to 350mm of rain over three days in Chattogram and its adjacent areas in upstream Tripura.
Intermittent rainfall caused waterlogging and inundation in Tripura since the first week of July.
Feni suffered a flash flood in the second week of the month when the Muhuri rose about 20 feet above its danger mark in the 24 hours until 9:00am on July 9.
But the early July event occurred amidst record rain. In the 24 hours until 6:00pm on July 9, the Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded 399mm rain in Feni, the second highest volume of rain the weather station recorded ever since it was established in 1973.
Between July 7 and 9, Feni recorded 584mm rainfall, 80 per cent of the average normal rain for the entire month.
In the 24 hours until 9:00am on Monday, the Teesta swelled by up to 29cm, the FFWC said, flowing 21cm below the danger mark at Kaunia in Rangpur.
