Super cyclone kills 22 in Bangladesh, India
NEW DELHI: A powerful cyclone ripped through densely populated coastal India and Bangladesh, blowing off roofs and whipping up waves that swallowed embankments and bridges and left entire villages without access to fresh water, electricity and communications. At least 22 people were reported killed Thursday.
The cyclone weakened after slamming ashore Wednesday evening amid massive evacuations. Officials warn that relief and repair work will be made harder by the coronavirus pandemic, which has already sapped the health care system.
In low- lying Bangladesh, up to eight people have died while 12 deaths were reported in West Bengal state in India. Officials said two people died in India’s Odisha state in the Bay of Bengal. Most of the deaths were because of the collapse of walls, drowning and falling trees in both countries.
Authorities began surveying the
damage Thursday after millions spent a sleepless night, which saw 165 kilometers an hour winds carrying away trees, electricity pylons, walls and roofs and transformer stations exploding.
In Bangladesh officials said they were waiting for reports from the Sundarbans which bore the brunt of the storm.
Widespread relief that the evacuation of more than three million people from coastal villages had averted the horrific death tolls of past storms was tempered by fears of the coronavirus pandemic spreading in crowded shelters.
Authorities in both countries sent masks and sanitizer, but physical distancing was virtually impossible as families packed into reinforced schools, government buildings and community halls.
Cyclones are an annual hazard along the Bay of Bengal coast. In 2007 Cyclone “Sidr” left more than 3,500 dead in Bangladesh.
Banerjee estimated there were 10 to 12 deaths in her state, though not all were immediately confirmed. Bangladesh officials said eight people had died, including a five-year-old boy and a 75-yearold man, both hit by falling trees, and a cyclone emergency volunteer who drowned.
Falling trees and chunks of concrete carried by the powerful winds were also blamed for the deaths in India. West Bengal capital Kolkata awoke to flooded streets with some cars window-deep in water.
Much of the city of 15 million people was plunged into darkness as transformer stations exploded. Millions across India and Bangladesh were left without power, officials said.
The cyclone weakened as it moved along the Bangladesh coast, but still unleashed heavy rains and fierce winds in Cox’s Bazar, the district which houses about one million Rohingya refugees from violence in Myanmar.
“Amphan” was the first “super cyclone” to form over the Bay of Bengal since 1999 and packed winds gusting up to 185 kolimeters per hour at sea.
It brought a storm surge — a wall of ocean water that is often one of the main killers in major weather systems — that roared inland. In southwest Bangladesh, a 1.5 meter surge broke an embankment and swamped farmland, police told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Bangladesh officials said the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans had borne the brunt.
“We still haven’t got the actual picture of the damage. We are particularly concerned over some wild animals. They can be washed away during storm surge in high tide,” forest chief Moyeen Uddin Khan told AFP.