37 people killed as storms lash Bangladesh

DHAKA, April 6, (Agencies): At least 37 people were killed when powerful storms swept Bangladesh at the weekend and left a trail of devastation in the northwest, officials said Monday.

Rescuers and villagers recovered the bodies of victims after the storms flattened thousands of houses, uprooted trees and electricity poles and damaged paddy fields across a large area on Saturday night and Sunday.

Nineteen people died in the northern district of Bogra, government administrator of the district Shafiqur Reza Biswas told AFP, adding that more than 100 people were injured.

“They died mostly after they were hit by falling trees or collapsed houses and walls,” he said, adding that authorities have sent emergency relief to thousands of villagers.

In neighbouring Rajshahi district, at least five people were killed and 27 injured as the storm hit a large stretch of low-lying land, another administrator said.

“At least 6,960 mud and tin-built houses were completely damaged by the storm,” said Mejbah Uddin Chowdhury.

In the western district of Kushtia two people died and around 100 houses were flattened on Sunday. Two died from lightning strikes as the storm hit the southern port city of Chittagong on Monday, government officials told AFP.

There were also fatalities in at least nine other districts, officials told local media, bringing the death toll to 37.

Storms known locally as Kalboishakhi often hit Bangladesh during the early summer in the lead-up to the monsoon, which usually begins about the first week of June.

Media reports Monday said that the casualties have been recorded since Saturday and that most deaths took place in the northern district of Bogra.

The Bengali-language Prothom Alo newspaper reported that at least 20 people died in Bogra while five people died in Dhaka and the rest in other northern areas as well as in the southwest of the country.

The newspaper says the storms have also uprooted trees, damaged electricity distribution lines, while hundreds of homes, shops and schools have been flattened in parts of the South Asian nation.

Bangladesh usually experiences such storms and tornadoes in April as the summer approaches.