Floodwaters swamped canals and low-lying areas around tea gardens, besides plantation and nursery plots. There have also been incidents of landslides in many tea gardens.

Bangladesh Tea Research Institute (BTRI) has already started assessing the loss, a top official of the institute said.

Officials with the BTRI said floods have played havoc with tea cultivation for the first time in recent memory in the country since almost all tea gardens are located at high lands.

According to officials, after medium level rainfalls recorded in the second week of July, tea garden areas experienced cloudburst until July 22. In total, 3,027 millimeters rainfalls were recorded until July 24 this year against 2,726 mm up to July 31, 2003.

1,401mm rainfalls were recorded in 24 days of July at the Met office located at the BTRI, Srimangal against 1,478mm in 31 days of July last year.

According to tea industry sources, more than 50 tea gardens in Monu-Dholoi, Lashkarpur and Balisera areas have been badly affected by the sudden flooding.

An official with BTRI said class one gardens suffered huge loss. Some 25,000 saplings in only a tea garden nursery have been damaged, he added.

BTRI Director AFM Badrul Alam said it is difficult to recoup the huge damage in a sensitive area like tea industry, which in many ways depends on weather condition.

The BTRI director also said the institute has already contacted the gardeners to make an assessment of the damage caused by the devastating deluge.

The target of tea production had been fixed at 56.5 million kg for this year. Last year total production stood at 56.7 million kg.

The country's tea production was a little better the last year compared with the output in recent years due to favourable weather condition.

Bangladesh's 160 tea estates, mostly owned by private companies, produce about 55 million kg tea a year.

Roughly two-third of the production is consumed locally while the rest of the portion is exported.

Some 0.15 million people are employed in the tea industry, which contributes about 3.3 percent to the country's total industrial employment.