As many parts of India, Nepal and Bangladesh face floods, drought continues to affect large swathes of Pakistan and some areas of India. In a cruel irony, parts of India that were hit by drought until the end of August are now expected to be flooded mere weeks later. Last month, the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reconfirmed that such erratic weather patterns, tied to an increasingly unpredictable monsoon cycle, bear the hallmark of climate change.

India’s latest flood situation report, published on 14 September and compiled by the non-profit Sphere India, counts over 3.8 million people affected over eight states. Eight people have died and 11,769 are in 142 relief camps, while 322 houses have been damaged.

Nepal’s capital Kathmandu received 121.5 millimetres of rainfall on 7 September – the fourth-highest 24-hour deluge on record, and third-highest in the past two decades. The Bagmati River that winds through the city burst its banks. According to police reports, around 150 people had to be rescued and over 400 houses were affected.

In Bangladesh, flooding occurred in both the Brahmaputra and Ganga basins, though water levels started receding by 11 September. In Rajbari district near the Padma River – the main distributary of the Ganga – children were forced out of flooded school buildings, while students in Tangail district had to row to school.

Thousands of weavers fear financial ruin after their looms were flooded. The distress was particularly severe in the riverine islands, called chars, because after the Covid-19-induced lockdowns forced many people to move away from the capital Dhaka, their populations increased unexpectedly.

Read the full article about late droughts and monsoons by Joydeep Gupta and Ramesh Bhushal at Eco-Business.