Bangladesh cyclone death toll could top 10,000
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
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Bangladesh's southern coast was awash with misery yesterday as villagers buried those killed by Cyclone Sidr while they waited for aid to reach them.
In the small village of Galachipa, a fisherman, Dhalan Mridha, told how he ignored the warnings about the storm and lost four members of his family.
He said: "Nothing is going to happen. That was our first thought and we went to bed. Our small hut was swept away like a piece of paper, and we all ran for shelter."
Mr Mridha said that on the way to a storm shelter he became separated from his wife, mother and two children. The next morning he found their bodies hanging in a bush along the coast.
Elsewhere there were reports that people had tied their children to trees to save them from being blown away when the cyclone's 150-mph winds struck last Thursday.
The official death toll from Bangladesh's worst cyclone for a decade had reached 2,579 last night but aid workers believe it will be much higher once details are in from the country's remote islands and isolated areas. Mohammad Abdur Rob, chairman of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, said it estimated that 10,000 had died after assessing information provided by thousands of volunteer rescuers.
Yesterday, the country's interim leader, Fakhruddin Ahmed, visited some of the worst-hit areas, promising survivors: "We will help you as best as we can."
Aid agencies say they now need non-food items to help more than three million people affected by the storm. Army helicopters have been delivering emergency supplies provided mostly by the World Food Programme, which is co-ordinating the rescue effort.
An American military medical team is already in Bangladesh and two US naval ships carrying tons of supplies and at least 20 helicopters will be made available if the Bangladeshi government requests them, Washington said yesterday.
The director of Save the Children in Bangladesh, Suman Sengupta, said: "The good news is that many people survived this disaster, compared to previous cyclones. But the bad news is that most survivors in the coastal areas have been left with absolutely nothing. Many families have lost everything, including their homes and their crops and they are struggling to survive."
