A farmer in Kishoreganj died after seeing his ripe paddy submerged by sudden flooding, as persistent rain and upstream flows damaged thousands of hectares across vulnerable haor regions.
A 60-year-old farmer in Bangladesh‘s northeastern Kishoreganj district died after suffering a heart attack when he saw his mature rice fields submerged in floodwater, his family said, as fresh flooding damaged thousands more hectares of cropland in the haor region.
Akhtar Hossain was taken to the upazila health complex on Saturday evening, May 2, where doctors declared him dead.
The deceased was a resident of Alinagar Paschimpara in Deoghar Union. Local union parishad member Mosha Nasima Akhtar said he fell ill after seeing his paddy fields go under water.
According to family members, Akhtar Hossain had cultivated dry-season rice on nearly three acres of land. Continuous rainfall and a rush of water from upstream flooded vast stretches of the haor, destroying most of his crop. Although some of the paddy had been harvested, he was unable to bring it home because of transport problems.
Relatives said he had taken out loans worth about 150,000 taka to finance the cultivation and was mentally devastated after the crop was ruined. They said he went to his land in the afternoon to inspect the situation and fell ill after seeing the extent of the damage. He was then rushed to hospital.
Meanwhile, the district agriculture department said another 2,000 hectares of paddy land in Kishoreganj’s haor areas had gone under water because of persistent rain and inflows from upstream.
That pushed the total damaged area to about 9,045 hectares, the department said, adding that the worst-hit areas were the haors of Itna and Ashtagram upazilas.
