At least 16 die after powerful Cyclone Sitrang slams into Bangladesh
- Authorities in the low-lying country rushed to move hundreds of thousands of people out of the storm’s path, fearing more heavy rain
- Most worrying was the predicted storm surge of up to three metres above normal tide levels, which could inundate areas home to millions of people
Cyclone Sitrang, packing winds of 80km/h (50mph), made landfall along the Chittagong-Barisal coast of southern Bangladesh at around 9pm, said government meteorologist Abul Kalam Mallick.
The storm was moving swiftly over the country’s southern region and its outer bands were already affecting Dhaka, hundreds of kilometres away from the Bay of Bengal, with trees uprooted and roads flooded in the capital.
Mallick said some coastal towns had received nearly 294 millimetres (12 inches) of rainfall.
Jebun Nahar, a government official, said 14 people died, mostly after they were hit by falling trees, and two died after a boat sank in squally weather in the Jamuna river in the north. “We still have not got all the reports of damages,” she said.
People evacuated from low-lying regions such as remote islands and river banks were moved to thousands of multistorey cyclone shelters, said Disaster Management Ministry secretary Kamrul Ahsan. “They spent the night in cyclone shelters.”
Cyclones – the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the Northwest Pacific – are a regular and deadly menace on the coast of the northern Indian Ocean where tens of millions of people live.