Kuakata: At least 16 other people have died after a cyclone hit Bangladesh, forcing the evacuation of around a million people from their homes, officials said Tuesday.
About 10 million more people were left without power in 15 coastal districts, while schools closed in the southern and southwestern regions.
Cyclones, such as hurricanes in the Atlantic or typhoons in the Pacific, are a normal threat, but scientists say climate change is likely to make them more intense and frequent.
Cyclone Sitrang made landfall in southern Bangladesh on Monday night, but the government managed to protect around a million people before the monster weather formula arrived.
Jebun Nahar, a government official, said another 14 people died, at most after being hit by falling trees, and two died after a boat sank in gusts into the Jamuna River in the north.
“We have not yet won all the reports of injuries,” he told AFP.
Evacuees from low-lying spaces such as remote islands and riverbanks have been moved to thousands of multi-story cyclone shelters, Crisis Control Ministry Secretary Kamrul Ahsan told AFP.
“They spent time in cyclone shelters. And this morning, many are going home,” he said.
In some cases, police had to cajole villagers who refused to leave their homes, he said.
The trees were uprooted like the capital Dhaka, many kilometers (miles) from the storm’s epicenter.
Heavy rains lashed much of the country, flooding cities including Dhaka, Khulna and Barisal, which recorded 324 millimeters of rain on Monday.
About 33,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, controversially displaced from the mainland to a storm-prone island in the Bay of Bengal, were ordered to remain and there have been no reports of casualties or damage, officials said.
However, a dreaded primary typhoon surge materialized.
On the southern island of Maheshkhali, the cyclone uprooted many trees and sparked panic after power and telecommunications were cut off.
“Such is the strength of the wind that we may not be able to sleep at night because of concerns that our homes will be destroyed. Snakes have entered many houses. The water also flooded many houses,” said Tahmidul Islam, 25, a resident of Maheshkhali. .
In the worst-hit region of Barisal, torrential rains and winds have wreaked havoc on vegetable farms, district regional administrator Aminul Ahsan told AFP.
In the neighboring Indian state of West Bengal, thousands of others were evacuated to more than a hundred rescue centers on Monday, officials said, but no injuries were reported and others were returning home Tuesday.
Last year, more than a million people were evacuated along India’s east coast before Cyclone Yaas battered the region with winds of up to 155 kilometers per hour, becoming a Category 2 hurricane.
Cyclone Amphan, the “super cyclone” moment ever recorded over the Bay of Bengal, which struck in 2020, killed more than a hundred people in Bangladesh and India, and affected millions.
In recent years, greater foresight and more effective evacuation plans have especially reduced the number of victims of these storms. The worst on record, in 1970, killed thousands of people.
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