The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Millions were rendered homeless and hungry in the twelve coastal districts, ravaged by super cyclone Sidr on Thursday and Friday, while thousands of rescuers, including military personnel, are struggling to reach relief materials for the second consecutive day, yesterday.

Innumurable bodies of the storm victims and cattleheads were still floating on the shore of the Bay of Bengal and in the rivers of coastal districts. The severe cyclone had badly hit 20 districts, including 12 on the coast and 34 of the 64 districts of the country were affected.

Total number of affected families are 17 million.

The death toll has been jumping by hundreds at a time as rescuers fight their way to remote areas where entire villages were flattened by the fury of Cyclone SIDR, which tore through southern part of the country and at least three districts in the mainland.

The Red Crescent officials said in the morning that the death figure would be much higher than 10,000 already reported. The number of injured and missing persons are thrice the death figure.

Our Bagerhat Correspondent Shaikh Abdul Jalil reported from the affected area last evening that over 1,300 persons died alone in different parts of Sharankhola upazila of the district.

Members of the Armed Forces are trying to reach the victims by Navy ships and boats, Air Force and Army helicopters, are supplying dry food, drinking water and medicines.

Our Barisal Correspondent reported that aid workers' supply was minimal to meet the high demand of drinking water, dry food, fuel and medicine in the affcted areas.

Meanwhile, mobile phone network was restored in most of the areas reached by rescuers yesterday. But land phone connections and electricity supply could not yet be restored in most areas.

Secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management Mohammad Aiyub Mia told journalists that 12 districts were severely battered and 20 others hit hard.

Victims in the worst-hit areas told AFP they were helpless and in desperate need of food and water.

"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 55-year-old farmer Abdus Sattar of the village of Nishanbari.

"For the corpses we don't even have cloths to wrap them in for burialt we are wrapping the bodies with leaves," he said in the village, situated on the Bay of Bengal coast and smashed by a six-metre (20 foot) high tidal wave.

Abdul Jabbar, 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.

"And still no relief officials and rescue officials have come to our area" AFP reported.

Officials described the humanitarian situation in coastal districts like Barguna, 200 kilometres (130 miles) south of the capital Dhaka, as the worst in decades.

"I have never seen such a catastrophe in my 20 years as a government administrator," said district official Hariprasad Pal, adding that millions were living in the open and aid was reaching only one per cent of the victims.

Aid efforts were being hampered by roads blocked by fallen trees bearing the sign of sheer scale of devastation. In some places elephants were used to remove the trees.

"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 the aid 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 immediately distribute dried food and plastic sheetings for temporary shelters, but that many helpers were themselves victims of the cyclone.

Teams of local doctors were already on the ground and supplies of medicine were on their way from the capital. Assessment teams, however, were still trying to piece together a picture of the appalling devastation to coordinate a major relief effort.

"Our estimate is that 900,000 families are affected," said Red Cross official Shafiquzzaman Rabbani. That figure is equivalent to roughly seven million people.

In many places, villagers said, the dead were quickly being buried in mass graves.

Along the Bay of Bengal coastline, officials were expecting to find thousands of bodies.

Most of the deaths were caused by the tidal wave which engulfed coastal villages, as well as by flying debris and falling trees that twisted and 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.