Bangladesh Floods

Beginning on July 7, 2026, a low-pressure system over the North Bay combined with an unusually strong monsoon flow to dump extraordinary amounts of rain on southeastern Bangladesh. The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre recorded 815 millimetres in Chattogram, 518 millimetres in Lama and 330 millimetres in Cox's Bazar over just three days, sending rivers in two of Bangladesh's four major river basins past danger levels and inundating hillsides, low-lying farmland and densely packed urban neighbourhoods.

Bangladesh's Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief confirmed a death toll of 51, with 39 more injured, as flooding and landslides swept across Chattogram, Cox's Bazar, Bandarban, Rangamati, Khagrachhari, Moulvibazar and Habiganj districts. Cox's Bazar has recorded the highest toll with 28 deaths — including 16 Rohingya refugees killed in a separate series of slope failures across the Ukhiya and Kutupalong mega-camps — followed by 13 in Chattogram, six in Bandarban, three in Rangamati and one in Moulvibazar. The Chattogram divisional commissioner's office estimates 267,918 families are marooned, roughly 80,000 homesteads have been damaged or destroyed, 344 educational institutions are inundated, and floodwaters have washed out 3,840 kilometres of road and 339 bridges and culverts. Nearly 50,000 people have taken refuge in emergency shelters, and more than one million residents remain cut off from power, communications and dry ground.

The Bangladesh Army, Fire Service and Civil Defence, Border Guard Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society are running search-and-rescue operations, distributing food, water and emergency shelter, and evacuating families from the highest-risk hillsides. International humanitarian agencies — including Save the Children, CARE Bangladesh, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), UNHCR and UNICEF — have scaled up child-protection, health and WASH services across the flood belt and the Rohingya camps. Forecasters are monitoring several river basins for the possibility of new short-term flooding in the coming days, and officials warn the death toll is likely to rise as damage assessments continue in cut-off villages.