Millions flee as cyclone slams India, Bangladesh
Battle with coronavirus might be compromised
NEW DELHI – A powerful cyclone plowed inland Wednesday after crashing into the coasts of India and Bangladesh, where more than 2.6 million people fled to shelters in a frantic evacuation made all the more challenging by the coronavirus pandemic.
Cyclone Amphan, the equivalent of a category 3 hurricane, was packing sustained winds of up to 105 miles per hour with maximum gusts of 118 mph. Authorities warned that it could cause extensive damage to flimsy houses and that a storm surge could push seawater miles inland, flooding cities including Kolkata.
Coconut trees swayed wildly, electric poles were scattered on the roads of Kolkata, rain pounded fishing villages, and rivers surged as the storm battered coastal areas. Thousands of home were damaged, and river embankments were washed away.
“The next 24 hours are very crucial. This is a long haul,” said M. Mohapatra, India’s meteorological chief.
The region, with 58 million people in the two bordering countries, has some of the most vulnerable communities in South Asia: poor fishing communities in the Sunderbans and more than a million Rohingya refugees living in crowded camps in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.
A woman crushed by a tree and a 13year-old girl killed near Kolkata were among the first deaths reported in India before phone connectivity snapped. In southern Bangladesh, a volunteer in a cyclone preparedness team drowned when a boat capsized in a canal.
The cyclone could endanger India’s fight against the coronavirus, with supply lines cut, roads destroyed and lockdown measures slowing relief work, said T. Sundaramanan, a health systems consultant in Pondicherry in southeast India.
Tuhin Ghosh, director of the School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University, said the pandemic’s lockdown has already sapped people’s resilience. “Because they are economically down, they are not getting enough food. ... When another disaster comes, then it’s a double impact.”
The cyclone made landfall between Digha, a seaside resort in West Bengal, and the Hatiya Islands in Bangladesh. The eye of the storm was likely to pass through the Sunderbans, one of the largest mangrove forests in the world, India’s meteorological department said.
The forests could act as a vital line of defense by dissipating some of the energy from the waves, said K.J. Ramesh, the department’s former chief.
But the isolated communities in the vast mangrove forests are among the most vulnerable. Ghosh said houses could be inundated, and mud homes had already washed away.
Bangladesh has evacuated about 2.4 million people to safety. India’s West Bengal state moved nearly 300,000 and Odisha state another 148,486, officials said.
In refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, where the first 10 coronavirus cases were confirmed last week, authorities and U.N. workers prepared 50 shelters and assigned 256 volunteer units.