The country’s sky today resembles a grieving land in tears. For the past five days, nature’s ceaseless weeping has shown no sign of stopping. Although the low-pressure system over the Bay of Bengal has moved on, active monsoon winds have kept unrelenting rain falling across the country, including the capital, on Friday. The continuous downpour has brought daily life to a standstill and stirred a melancholy despair among the capital’s residents.
The evening dew and the morning sun alike are dimmed today beneath the untimely gloom of cloud. For five days there has been no full moon and no beckoning blue sky — only the ceaseless rain, falling and falling. It began with a restless depression that stirred over the Bay of Bengal. That wandering low, its sulk spent, slipped beyond the horizon long ago; but the clouds’ weeping has not stopped. Now it is the monsoon wind’s familiar restlessness — the active airflow singing its rain-soaked tune across the sky.
From 6am to 9am, 15 millimeters of rain was recorded in the capital, following 28 millimeters in the preceding 24 hours. The banked clouds across the sky and the humidity in the air seem to signal that the rain will not let up soon. The Meteorological Department says the heavy-rain spell could stretch not only through today but into Saturday and even Sunday.
Asked why the rain is so heavy at this time and how long it will last, senior meteorologist Bazlur Rahman of the Meteorological Department told Amar Desh that the conditions could persist until July 12, after which the situation may improve. He blamed the global El Niño for the disruptive weather, saying that although June brought 30 percent less rain, early July has seen intense downpours over short periods; the El Niño effect, he said, could persist on and off throughout the year, potentially bringing not only excessive rain but also abnormal spikes in temperature.
Monsoon rain, he said, usually falls intermittently over a long stretch — sometimes light, sometimes heavy. “But what we are seeing now is not the normal monsoon rain. A great deal of rain is falling in a short time, and we believe this is the effect of the global El Niño,” he said.
The veteran forecaster added that such heavy single-day rainfall in July had not been seen in the past four decades. “By the records we hold, the highest was 407 millimeters on July 5, 1983,” he said. Meanwhile, as anguished cries echo through the grim reality of landslides and flooding in Chattogram, Cox’s Bazar and Sylhet, the capital Dhaka too seems sunk in a strange silence, its waterlogged streets and crawling traffic adding an endless wait to residents’ daily lives.
Amid the relentless rain, ordinary residents voice a deep, nature-bound reflection. Najmul Haque Shamim, a private-sector employee, said: “Standing by the window, it feels as if the city has become some ancient, mysterious metropolis beneath the water. Even as the sound of rain washes away the fatigue of a busy working life, it feels as though this rain has merged with our very existence.”
Sadia Afroz, a university student, said: “The poetic side of rain is a pleasure only when you watch it with a cup of tea on the veranda. But when I hear that hundreds of thousands of people are shut in their homes under this endless rain, every raindrop feels like a sigh.”
Abu Bakr Siddique, an elderly resident, said: “In the old days rain meant the smile of a harvest; today it feels like an image of dread in city life. Nature has lost its balance, and in the thunder of the clouds the fear of people being left homeless now stands out more than any poetry of rain.”
According to a heavy-rainfall warning signed by meteorologist Dr. Md. Omar Faruk, all eight of the country’s divisions face the prospect of heavy to very heavy rain over the 24 hours from 10am. The downpour will be heaviest in the Khulna, Barishal, Chattogram and Sylhet divisions, though the pattern will hold nationwide. Cautionary signal number three remains in force at the country’s four seaports, and signal number one at its river ports.
In the Meteorological Department’s terms, heavy rain spans 44 to 88 millimeters; where the threat pushes beyond that into very heavy rain, this unbroken downpour has become a public-health concern.
According to the Meteorological Department, rain fell to varying degrees across the country in the 24 hours to 6am Friday. The heaviest was in the port city of Chattogram, at 211 millimeters, followed by 209 millimeters in Teknaf, 179 in Satkhira, 163 in Gopalganj, 153 at Ambagan in Chattogram, 131 in Bandarban, 129 in Kutubdia, 138 at Tarash in Sirajganj, 124 in Tangail, 111 in Madaripur and 110 in Jashore. The capital recorded 28 millimeters over the same period.
Earlier, in the 24 hours to 6am Thursday, rainfall had been higher still across most of the country. The highest, 329 millimeters, was recorded at the Ambagan station in Chattogram, followed by 300 millimeters in Kutubdia, 249 in Chattogram, 235 in Bandarban, 130 in Rangamati, 122 in Tetulia, 142 in Gopalganj and 125 in Cox’s Bazar.
The heavy-rain spell may continue through Sunday before easing by Monday. When nature’s fury and the sky’s ceaseless weeping will end remains uncertain. But amid the rhythmic downpour, a prayerful note now sounds in the hearts of the capital’s residents — let the rain stop, let the clouds part, and let the world return to its natural rhythm.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report