Life Under Water

For almost two weeks, monsoon rain hammered Sumi and her family’s home.

When the water rose, fanning out like a skirt around her knees, Sumi was terrified.

When the floods hit, Sumi, 20, was at home with her mother, her two younger sisters and her baby daughter, Nusrat. She couldn’t go outside to buy food. Soon, she became weak and couldn’t nurse one-month-old Nusrat any longer.

“My little baby had fever and rashes on her skin, but I couldn’t go to the clinic,” Sumi said. “I was so scared for my daughter as the water kept rising, and I couldn’t stop worrying about what would happen to her.”

Sumi was married at 18, but her husband left her before Nusrat was born. Now, she’s a single mother.

“I can’t think about the future,” she said. “The only thing I think about is my daughter.”

---

“

I didn’t know what to do. I cut some banana leaves and made a canoe. I cried for fear of what would happen to my baby.”  —Sumi, 20, one of 18 million people who struggled to find food, clean water and a safe place to live due to floods in Bangladesh last year

---

A once-in-a-century disaster

In August 2024, Bangladesh experienced one of the worst monsoon floods in recent history. In just 24 hours, 500–600 millimetres of rain fell – more than the average annual rainfall for those areas in 11 districts in northeastern and southeastern Bangladesh. Heavy rains, coupled with a surge of water released from a dam, resulted in severe flash floods, trapping 1.2 million families.

According to the Bangladesh Agriculture Ministry, the floods caused CHF 240 million (C$386 million) in crop damage, impacting more than 1.3 million farmers.

It was a once-in-a-century disaster. And no one – not the people in these communities or the organizations meant to protect them – was prepared to handle it.

How monsoon floods affect the people of Bangladesh

Monsoon season in Bangladesh occurs between June and October. By the end of the season, up to one-third of the country may be underwater. The floods that follow monsoon rains are getting worse due to climate changes, and as saltwater flows into the freshwater rivers, clean drinking water becomes harder to find.

In most homes, women are responsible for finding water to drink and cook with, even if that means travelling long distances through mud and dirty, swampy water. Women’s responsibilities increase in times of flooding, as men lose jobs driving rickshaws on roads or farming land that’s now underwater and go to bigger towns and cities looking for work – leaving women to feed, protect and support their families.

---

“

The impact of [the 2024] monsoon rains has been widespread and devastating. There are now millions of people, including children, in need of safe shelter and life-saving humanitarian assistance.”  —Kabita Bose, Plan International Bangladesh country director

---

Faces of the floods

Plan: A partner in monsoon preparation

Responding to one of the worst monsoon seasons in recorded history in 2024, Plan International Bangladesh distributed life-saving essentials like clean drinking water and food and hygiene kits in the Feni, Noakhali and Khagrachari districts in southeastern Bangladesh.

Plan worked with local organizations to rescue people, using boats. People with disabilities, pregnant and lactating mothers, and adolescent girls who’d been left stranded by the floods were rescued first.

As part of our child-protection work, many of the people rescued were taken to shelters or hospitals, where dry food was being distributed. Girls and women were also given menstrual supplies. Once the water from the floods had receded and people were able to return home, Plan helped build latrines in the affected communities so that girls and young women could access clean washrooms.

Teaching children to prepare for disasters

Since it launched more than 85 years ago, Plan International has supported children in crisis. This includes helping communities in Bangladesh prepare for disasters like flooding so they’re better protected when it happens.

Fourteen-year-old Shadona participated in a project like this. She lives in Kurigram, a district regularly hit by floods and storms that damage homes, roads and the farmlands people rely on for income.

“The roads are often impassable, so we are unable to get to school,” she says.

Shadona joined a student task force that was part of a Plan International project preparing children for the emergencies that regularly disrupt their lives.

“We learned how to do an assessment to find the risks at our school and how to plan for emergencies,” she says.

Floods can submerge classrooms, and it sometimes takes weeks for the water to clear. Because floods happen every year, the damage builds up, and there’s not always enough money to repair or renovate the classrooms.

Shadona and the task force brought this unsafe classroom condition – among other issues – to the attention of their teachers and community, as well as to the education ministry in their department. The first change they saw? A budget was approved to renovate two classrooms and build new washrooms that give girls more privacy during their periods.

Risk assessments, which are part of projects like the one Shadona participated in, give students the evidence they need to act and better prepare their schools for floods, earthquakes or other extreme weather events.