The New Nation - Internet Edition

The feet of the dead protrude from underneath a
collapsed tin shed following the devastating storm that
swept overnight at Joymoni of Rupsha in Mongla on Friday.
Focus Bangla

Cyclone Sidr damaged a billboard at Progati Sarani
in the city. The snap was taken on Friday. Focus
Bangla

An uprooted tree fell on the road near the Matsya
Bhavan in the city on Friday storm. FocusBangla

The body of a cyclone victim on a devastated paddy
field in Patuakhali yesterday. FocusBangla

Staff Reporter

Thousands of people are feared dead in different areas in the country, battered by the super cyclone SIDR that first hit the central part of Bangladesh at 5:30pm on Thursday and continued its devastation till it crossed the country's area at 9:00am yesterday.

The government officials confirmed 740 dead while reporters from different parts of the country said the figure might be above 15000. Number of missing and injured people would be much higher. About 50,000 people, most of them fishermen, became stranded at different remote islands, including Dublar Char and Hiron Point, in the bay. While many fishermen, who went to the bay did not returned till yesterday.

Seven Naval Ships equipped with sufficient quantity of dry foods, medicines and medical staffs left yesterday afternoon to rescue and help the people stranded in remote islands in the bay.

Central part of the severe cyclone passed through the central part of the country, hitting entire Bangladesh fully or partiallay, levelling homes and standing aman and robi crops on its way. Thousands of cattleheads, deer and Royal Bengal tiger of the Sundarban and birds are also feared dead. Barguna and part of Patuakhali districts of Barisal division and Bagerhat and part of Satkhira districts of Khulna division are worst hit by the cyclone. The SIDR, a fourth grade cyclone, which had a radius 274 killometres while the radius of its eye was 74 killometres, hit the entire Bangladesh coast at the windspeed from 100 killometres to 200 killometres per hour (kph) depending on the location of the places from its eye. Coast of Khulna and Barisal (divisions), which covered by the radius of the eye of the cyclone and hit with the windspeed from 185 kph to 220 kph, experienced 10 feet to 20 feet tidal surge washing away homes, standing crops and cattles.

The whole country plunged into darkness as the electricity authorities started cutting power connection from 5:00pm on Thursday to 2:00am today. Land telephone communications was disconnect in most part of the country while internet was disrupted as optical fibre was cut down at a number of places.

All the 15 coastal districts were hit by the cyclone. Of these 11 districts were worst hit by the storm.Government spokespersons, including Chief Adviser's Press Secretary Syed Fhim Munayem said about 2,31000 houses were destroyed while 70 per cent of the standing crop was badly damaged. Infrastuctures and road communications suffered a massive damage, which

Secretary of the Disaster Management Ministry Mohammad Aiyub Mia said a massive rescue and relief operation was started as per the directives of Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed.

The Chief Adviser along with Army Chief General Moeen U Ahmed, Navy Chief Admiral Sarwar Jahan Nizam and Air Force Air Marshall Chief Shah Mohammad Abu Nayeem visited cyclone affected Bagerhat, Khulna and Satkhira districts.

Earlier, Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed presided over a meeting of the National Disaster Management Council at his office. Members of the Advisory Council, Chiefs of three services and secretaries of the concerned ministries attended the meeting.

The Chief Adviser has already released Tk one crore in cash for relief works and ordered all district administrations to provide all help to the affected people.

He said there would be no dearth of resources to help the needy people.

The total number of (cyclone) vulnerable people in the 15 coastal districts is 3 crore 32 lakh. Of them 15 lakh were evacuated earlier to 2,148 cyclone shelters earlier and 1 crore 70 lakh took refuge in safer places of their own.

Officials, journalists and expert said the loss of human could be less than that of the previous super cyclones, including the one in 1991 and the other in 1970 due to the timely evacuation and warning measures.

However, many of the coastal people, who left the cyclone shelters for their homes after the storm found them flattened to the ground and returned to shelters again.

Meanwhile, World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nation yesterday sent detchpached 98 metric tones dry foods for the cyclone affected coastal people.