Villagers, holding umbrellas made of palm leaves, made their way as clouds hung low on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, India, yesterday. Thousands were stranded in heavy rains.
(Biswaranjan Rout/ Associated Press)
Cyclone triggers tidal surge, floods in southern Asia
Villagers, holding umbrellas made of palm leaves, made their way as clouds hung low on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, India, yesterday. Thousands were stranded in heavy rains.
(Biswaranjan Rout/ Associated Press)
Reuters
/
May 26, 2009
- |
CALCUTTA - A cyclone slammed into parts of Bangladesh and eastern India yesterday, triggering tidal surges and flooding that forced half a million people from their homes and killed almost three dozen.
Officials in coastal Bangladesh moved about 500,000 people to temporary shelters after they left their homes to escape huge tidal waves churned up by winds of up to 60 miles an hour.
Heavy rains triggered by the storm also raised river levels and burst mud embankments in the Sundarbans Delta, in the neighboring eastern Indian state of West Bengal. The affected area is home to hundreds of thousands of people as well as the world's biggest tiger reserve.
The cyclone killed at least 33 people, including 18 in West Bengal, officials from the two countries said. Most victims either drowned or were killed in house collapses or crushed under uprooted trees.
Indian Oil Corp. suspended operations of its single-point mooring facility at Paradip port in eastern India, while authorities shut down operations at Bangladesh's main ports of Chittagong and Mongla.
The cyclone and tidal waves damaged roads and embankments and leveled standing crops over vast areas, officials said.
Salahuddin Chowdhury, a Bangladesh cyclone specialist, said, "Nearly 500,000 people who fled [their] homes have been sheltered in several hundred shelters in eight coastal districts so far."
About 400,000 people remained marooned in Sundarbans.
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