At least 16 people died after a cyclone struck Bangladesh, forcing the evacuation of about a million people from their homes, officials said on Tuesday.
Around 10 million people were without power in 15 coastal districts, while schools in the southern and south-western regions were closed.
Cyclones — the equivalent of Atlantic hurricanes or Pacific typhoons — are a regular threat, but scientists say climate change is likely making them more intense and frequent.
Cyclone Sitrang made landfall in southern Bangladesh late Monday, but authorities managed to evacuate about a million people before the monster weather system hit.
Jebun Nahar, a government official, said 14 people died, mostly after being hit by falling trees, and two died after a boat sank in the north’s Jamuna River during stormy weather.
“We still haven’t received all the damage reports,” she told the AFP news agency.
People evacuated from low-lying regions such as remote islands and river banks were taken to thousands of multi-storey cyclone shelters, Emergencies Ministry secretary Kamrul Ahsan told AFP.
“They spent the night in cyclone shelters. And this morning many are returning to their homes,” he said.
In some cases, police have had to cajole villagers who were reluctant to leave their homes, officials said.
Trees were uprooted as far away as the capital, Dhaka, hundreds of kilometers from the storm’s epicenter.
Heavy rains lashed much of the country, inundating cities including Dhaka, Khulna and Barisal – which received 324 millimeters (13 inches) of rain on Monday.
About 33,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar who have been controversially relocated from the mainland to a storm-prone island in the Bay of Bengal have been ordered to stay indoors and there have been no reports of casualties or damage, officials said.
However, a feared large storm surge did not materialize.
– panic and snakes –
On the southern island of Maheshkhali, the cyclone uprooted many trees and sparked panic after power and telecommunications were cut.
“The wind was so strong that we couldn’t sleep at night for fear that our houses would be destroyed. Snakes entered many houses. Water also flooded many houses,” said Tahmidul Islam, 25, a Maheshkhali resident.
In the worst-hit region of Barisal, heavy rains and strong winds have devastated vegetable farms, regional district administrator Aminul Ahsan told AFP.
In the neighboring east Indian state of West Bengal, thousands of people at more than 100 relief centers were evacuated on Monday, officials said, but there were no reports of damage and people returned home on Tuesday.
Last year, more than a million people were evacuated along India’s east coast before Cyclone Yaas hit the area with wind gusts of up to 155 kilometers per hour – the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane.
Cyclone Amphan, the second “super cyclone” ever recorded over the Bay of Bengal to hit in 2020, killed more than 100 people in Bangladesh and India and affected millions.
In recent years, better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have drastically reduced the death toll from such storms. The worst on record, in 1970, killed hundreds of thousands of people.
