Cyclone slams Bangladesh and India
Strongest storm in 20 years leaves trail of destruction and at least 80 dead
India and Bangladesh began a massive clean-up after the fiercest cyclone since 1999 killed at least 84 people, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
Cyclone Amphan flattened houses, uprooted trees, blew off roofs and toppled electricity pylons on Thursday, while a storm surge inundated coastal villages and wrecked shrimp farms vital to the local economy.
The United Nations office in Bangladesh estimated that 10 million people were affected, and some 500,000 people may have lost their homes.
But the death toll was far lower than the many thousands killed in previous cyclones – a result of improved weather forecasting and better response plans.
The disaster has raised fears, however, that overcrowding in storm shelters will exacerbate the spread of the coronavirus.
India’s West Bengal reported 72 deaths – including 14 in the capital Kolkata – with state premier Mamata Banerjee saying: “I haven’t seen a disaster of this magnitude.”
In Bangladesh, the official death toll was 12.
Improved weather forecasting meant Bangladesh was able to move some 2.4 million people into shelters or out of the storm’s direct path, while India evacuated some 650,000.
At least 10 million people were still without power on Thursday afternoon in the worst-hit districts of Bangladesh, said Moin Uddin, the head of the rural electricity board.
“Huge number of electricity poles fell down after it was lashed by the cyclone, or they were hit by huge number of fallen trees. Transformers, conductors and meters were also destroyed,” he said.
Residents of Kolkata woke to flooded streets, with the city’s signature yellow taxis up to their bonnets in water in one neighbourhood.
“The impact of Amphan is worse than the coronavirus,” premier Banerjee said.
“Thousands of mud huts have been levelled, trees uprooted, roads washed away and crops destroyed.”
Other officials said they were waiting for damage reports from the Sundarbans, the vast mangrove area that is home to endangered Bengal tigers and which bore the brunt of the storm.
The cyclone weakened as it moved north through Bangladesh but still unleashed heavy rain and fierce winds in Cox’s Bazar, the district which houses about one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.
The UN said the effect in the vast camps of flimsy shacks appeared to be “fairly minimal”.
The area most affected by Amphan, the first “super cyclone” to form over the Bay of Bengal since 1999, was the Satkhira district of south-west Bangladesh.
There, a storm surge – a wall of ocean water that is often one of the main killers in major weather systems – roared inland and destroyed embankments protecting villages and shrimp farms.
In the village of Purba Durgabati, hundreds of locals worked through the night to mend a breach in a levee, but to no avail. Some 600 homes and thousands of shrimp farms were hit.
“The coronavirus has already taken a toll on people. Now the cyclone has made them paupers,” said local councillor Bhabotosh Kumar Mondal.