Cleanup begins after cyclone ravages India, Bangladesh

NEW DELHI—Authorities began clearing roads and assessing damage on Friday after Cyclone Amphan barrelled through coastal communities in eastern India and neighbouring Bangladesh, killing more than 100 people and leaving millions displaced.

In India’s West Bengal state, which bore the brunt of the storm that caused extensive flooding in its capital Kolkata, police and disaster response teams removed fallen trees and other debris, repaired communication lines and began moving hundreds of thousands of people out of shelters.

Amphan hit land Wednesday as the most powerful storm in the region in more than a decade, dumping heavy rain amid a battering storm surge.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the cyclone should be treated as a national disaster and appealed for assistance from the federal government.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi surveyed the worst-hit areas of West Bengal and neighbouring Odisha state by air.

“The country is already going through a crisis and during that time we have to deal with a cyclone,” Modi said in West Bengal. He announced a $195-million (U.S.) relief fund for the two storm-battered states.

The cyclone has raised fears it could exacerbate the spread of the coronavirus in overcrowded emergency shelters.

In an initial assessment, officials in Bangladesh said the cyclone caused about $130 million in damage to infrastructure, housing, fisheries, livestock, water resources and agriculture.