Besides leaving thousands of people without safe water and prompting evacuations of many others, the floods in Chattogram division damaged over the last few days at least 282 kilometres of major roads in just three districts.

As waters recede, locals are confronting the grim reality of damaged or completely wrecked houses with no means of cooking.

Thousands of residents in Bandarban and Chattogram's Satkania and Chandanaish upazilas are left without drinking water and electricity. Cellular networks in the areas have also been very poor over the last few days.

Flooded roads to Bandarban have been closed since Sunday while the Chattogram-Cox's Bazar highway, with new potholes  and craters, opened to traffic yesterday morning.

Locals in Pekua upazila of Cox's Bazar found the bodies of three children of a family a day after they went missing from the flooded neighbourhood of Ferasingapara.

The children are Tauhida, 10, daughter of Nurul Alam; her brother Amir Hossain, 5; and their cousin Humaiara, 8, daughter of Saber Ahmed.

The bodies of the children, still holding each other, were found around 6:30am, said local union parishad chairman Toffazzal Karim.

The situation is likely to improve in the coming days as Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre yesterday said the level of water in the Muhuri, Feni, Halda, Karnaphuli, Sangu and Matamuhuri will continue to fall.

In Satkania and Chandanish, thousands of residents' homes were still under two to five metres deep in flood waters yesterday.

Those who returned to their homes found their earthen stoves washed away.

"On return, we found that the house is not liveable any more. We have not eaten cooked food in two days," said Abdul Haque, a resident of Satkania.

The farmer said he lived on rail lines with his wife and two children for several days after his house got inundated.

In places where the flood waters have completely receded, owners of restaurants and shops were busy cleaning up, he added.

Abul Hossain, a shopkeeper at Keranirhat Bazar in Satkania, said, "At least 300 sacks of rice in my shop were ruined."

Many other shopkeepers said their lives have been upturned by the floods.

Bandarban town has not had electricity since Sunday night and thousands of people are suffering a severe crisis of drinking water. Many neighbourhoods were still under water yesterday.

ROADS TAKE HIT

According to the Roads and Highways Department (RHD), 142kms of road got damaged in its Chattogram (south) division, 79kms in Chattogram division, 59kms in Cox's Bazar, and 1.88kms in Rangamati.

The Marine Drive road, a tourist attraction in Cox's Bazar, also got damaged.

The scale of the damage to the roads in Bandarban is not clear yet as the RHD headquarters could not contact its local office.

An engineer at the RHD headquarters said since July 15, floods damaged 163km of roads in Kurigram, Nilphamari, Rangpur, Khulna, Bagethat, Sunamganj, Tangail, Jhalakathi and Feni.

In different districts, 65.31km of national highways, 120.75km of regional highways, and 258.97km of district roads got damaged.

The newly-built Chattogram-Cox's Bazar rail lines were also damaged by the flood.

[Our correspondents from Chattogram, Cox's Bazar and Bandarban contributed to the report]