Bangladesh cyclone dead number 2,200, millions destitute 13 hours ago
BARGUNA, Bangladesh (AFP) — Bangladesh said Sunday the death toll from a massive cyclone was over the 2,200 mark, with the grim tally rising fast and millions left homeless, hungry and without medical help.
Rescue workers were still fighting their way to remote areas where entire villages were flattened by the fury of Cyclone Sidr, which tore through southern Bangladesh, as traumatised survivors appealed for help.
"I lost six of my family members in the cyclone. I am afraid that the rest three of us will die of hunger. We are without food and water for the last few days," said a 55-year-old farmer, Sattar Gazi.
"For the corpses, we don't even have clothes to wrap them in for burial... we are wrapping the bodies in leaves," he told AFP in the village, situated on the Bay of Bengal coast and smashed by a six-metre (20 foot) high tidal wave.
Abdul Zabbar, a 50-year-old teacher, said the situation in the area -- already one of the poorest places on earth -- was now unbearable.
"There is no food and drinking water. The whole village is unlivable. Bodies are still floating in the rivers and paddy fields," he said, adding the rice harvest -- or four months of food -- had also been washed away.
Victims told an AFP correspondent who managed to reach this coastal area that they had not seen any aid workers -- let alone even seen or heard a plane or helicopter.
Officials said the humanitarian situation in coastal districts like Barguna, 200 kilometres (130 miles) south of the capital Dhaka, is the worst in decades.
"I have never seen such a catastrophe in my 20 years as a government administrator," said district official Harisprasad Pal, adding that millions were living in the open and aid was reaching only a tiny number of people.
The confirmed death toll was 2,217 and rising, the relief and disaster management ministry said.
There has also been no word from the string of islands off the coast, which would have suffered the full wrath of Thursday night's storm.
Aid efforts were being hampered by roads blocked by fallen trees and the sheer scale of the devastation.
"In the remote areas it is slow-going, they are almost chopping trees as they go along," said Douglas Casson Coutts of the World Food Programme, adding that officials were working with the military to organise air drops to the most inaccessible districts.
Red Cross and Red Crescent workers said they were using their network of volunteers to distribute dried food and plastic sheeting for temporary shelters, but that many helpers were themselves victims.
Assessment teams were also yet to piece together a wider picture of the devastation that is needed to coordinate a major relief effort.
"Our estimate is that 900,000 families are affected," said Red Cross official Shafiquzzaman Rabbani.
That figure amounts to roughly seven million people.
In many places, villagers said, the dead were quickly being buried in mass graves.
Most of the deaths were caused by the tidal wave which engulfed coastal villages, as well as flying debris and falling trees that crushed flimsy bamboo and tin homes -- all that most people in Bangladesh can afford.
A 25-year-old woman, Jahanara, recounted how she managed to cling to a tree as the storm ripped away everything around her, including her husband, two sons and mother, and even the clothes on her back.
"The wind and the tidal surge were so strong that it churned up four kilometres of a tarmac road," said another villager, Anowar Hossen Khan.
Army helicopters were also dropping supplies from the air while five navy ships were distributing food, medicine and relief materials, the government said.
Experts, meanwhile, said they feared for the wildlife and ecology of the world's biggest mangrove forest, home to the endangered Royal Bengal tiger.
"The cyclone has inflicted an ecological disaster," said Shanti Ranjan Das of the government's livestock department.
The vast mangrove forest, listed as a World Heritage Site by the UN cultural organisation UNESCO, is a natural barrier that stands between much of southern Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal and offers some protection for the low-lying country from the bay's many less serious tidal waves and cyclones.
The government now acts competently with storm warnings, preparations and such which shows. The 1970 one under Pakistan goverment killed 100000+ compared to 2200. So I guess in 3 decades of independence something was actually learned besides massive corruption and bureaucracy...
Sadly I don't think anything more can be done to avoid this kind of tragedy. People in the coast are poorest of the poor. The storm was just a gust of wind in the capital we went on with our lives as normal. But for people living in flimsy houses on islands it was death. Short of evicting them from danger zones there is nothing that can be done.
I have to tell you something everything I wrote above is a lie.
Darth Wong wrote:Why are coastal dwellers so poor?
Whilst I cant say for Bangladesh, I do know that coastal areas of Britain also are poorer than the suburban areas (and lets face it, most of Britain is coast)
One of the main reasons is that most industrial jobs have long gone and the only real input into the local economy comes from tourism. The main problem with this is if there is nothing other than just sun, sea and sand to attract those people, then when there is bad weather or when winter comes, no one is really going to come. Hence why a majority of jobs are seasonal and low paid.
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Darth Wong wrote:Why are coastal dwellers so poor?
It is very inhospitable terrain with few roads or electric power lines. Boats are the fastest way to travel and I am not exaggerating when I say it looks just like the Amazon. People live on small islands either in the sea or within the massive interconnected swamp that makes up the Sunderban forest. There is little do besides fishing and agriculture. It's like another country within a country. Dhaka looks like a decent modern city compared to this region.
I have to tell you something everything I wrote above is a lie.
It's not so much that the coasts are inherently poor, as that the poor find it easier to eke out a living there than at other locations. So, I'm guessing, you get squatters, homeless, and people living in makeshift shelters that simply can't hold up to this level of storm.
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If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
That cyclone was very close to a Cat 5 when it hit, another 5mph of wind speed and it would've been a Cat 5. Not much you can do when something that strong hits.
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Bangladesh pretty much gets hit by a cyclone every year. Typically pretty strong ones. History repeats itself every year.
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It doesn't help most of the country is barely above sea level
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.
Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy
Bangladesh gets truly fucked when tropical storm hit in conjunction with heavy rains in the Himalayas, which cause the rivers that flow through the country to flood even without the storms help. They seem to have gotten very lucky this time, even if the true death toll is two or three times higher. In theory all the marshland and barrier islands along the countries coast should give it pretty good storm protection… but those areas are all now full of people anyway.
Still, Bangladesh had made some pretty big educational and economic strides in the past three decades despite numerous bad storms. The country is still very poor on a per capita basis, but the GDP is over 350 billion which means they aren’t totally helpless and dependent on aid 24/7
Broomstick wrote:It doesn't help most of the country is barely above sea level
Every storm they get reduces the land area of the country, in some cases by tens of square kilometers. They have a huge erosion problem to go along with rising sea level, course this is no surprise as an estuary is not meant to be a static landform to begin with.
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