Cyclone kills more than 80 as it slams Bangladesh, India
NEW DELHI — Wide swaths of coastal India and Bangladesh were flooded and millions were without power Thursday as Cyclone Amphan, the most powerful storm to hit the region in more than a decade, killed over 80 people and cut a path of destruction that is still being assessed.
Many parts of the Indian metropolis of Kolkata, home to more than 14 million people, were under water, and its airport was closed briefly by flooding. Roads were littered with uprooted trees and lamp posts, electricity and communication lines were down and centuries-old buildings were damaged.
Officials in both countries said the full extent of the damage caused by the cyclone was not known because communications to many places were cut. Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated ahead of the storm, a process complicated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Amphan came ashore Wednesday with heavy rain, a battering storm surge and sustained winds of 105 mph and gusts up to 118 mph. It devastated coastal villages, knocking down mud houses, tearing down utility poles and uprooting trees.
“I have never seen such a disaster before,” said West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, adding that the government would pay the equivalent of $3,310 to families who lost a relative in the storm.
At least 74 people were killed in India, with most of the deaths in West Bengal state, which includes Kolkata. Broadcasters in Bangladesh reported 13 were killed in that country.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said authorities were working to get all possible assistance to victims of the cyclone.
About 10 million people in Bangladesh remained without electricity, said Moin Uddin, chairman of the Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board.
In an initial assessment in Bangladesh, Enamur Rahman, the country’s junior minister for disaster management, said the cyclone caused about $130 million in damage to infrastructure, housing, fisheri es, l i vestock, water resources and agriculture.
Debashish Shyamal, who lives in a fishing village along the West Bengal coast, took shelter with his family in a government clinic. He said the wind blew open the windows and doors and for hours t hey huddled i nside, drenched by the torrential rain.
On Thursday, Shyamal discovered dangling electricity wires, waterlogged streets and an uprooted forest.
“There is nothing left,” he said.
Banerjee ordered a drive to plant mangroves in the Sundarbans, a low-lying delta region of about 200 islands in the Bay of Bengal where about 13 million impoverished Indians and Bangladeshis live.
The region is no stranger to devastating cyclones, and the mangrove forests act as a barrier, absorbing the impact of the storms, said K.J. Ramesh, the former chief of India’s meteorological department. The cyclone had passed directly through these forests, officials said.
Ramesh said the storms’ intensity has increased due t o changing climate patterns.