Sidr death toll crosses 2,000
Rescuers struggle to reach remote areas
Courtesy New Age 17/11/07
The death toll from Thursday’s cyclone Sidr rose to more than 2000 with reports of destruction pouring in as rescuers struggled to reach remote watery edges of the coastal districts.
Hundreds of survivors were yet to be evacuated to shelters and injured remained unattended in the worst hit Barguna and Pirojpur disricts as a number of the deltaic islands remained inundated following the tidal surge triggered by the cyclone.
The Armed Forces Division, leading the relief and rescue operations, put the death figures at 1,723 till 7pm Saturday.
Food and disaster management secretary Mohammad Ayub Mia on Friday said that 15 lakh people had been evacuated to 2,168 cyclone centres before the cyclone started pounding the coastal areas Thursday night. Some 42,000 volunteers were deployed for evacuation.
Tidal surge rising up to 6 feet crashed into low-lying offshore islands causing deaths and destruction of crops, the secretary mentioned.
Hundreds of bodies were still floating in the rivers surrounding Dublar Char in the Sundarban, said people returning from inside the mangrove forest on Saturday.
They said there were about seven hundred makeshift shelters for nearly 7,000 fishermen on Dublar Char and its surrounding areas. Many of the fishermen, who took shelter in their boats on different canals and creeks during the cyclone, are feared to have been washed away by the giant waves.
Fisherman Milon (30) of Patharghata upazila in Barguna remained floating for about 30 hours in the Bay before he was rescued by a trawler Saturday morning and taken to Bagerhat in the afternoon.
‘My boat sank when I was trying to take shelter on the river inside the Sundarban. On my way back after being rescued, I saw hundreds of bodies floating in the Bay and the rivers near Dublar Char,’ Milon said.
Shah Alam Masud (36), a resident of Kakchira Bazar, said all the roads in the river port area had been damaged.
‘Ninety per cent of the dwellings in the area have been blown away or razed to the ground by the storm,’ he said.
Captain Abidur Rahman, commander of the Coast Guards’ west zone, told New Age that they had rescued 180 people from the sea and rivers around Dublar Char and recovered three bodies from there. ‘Reports that hundreds of bodies are floating are baseless,’ he said.
Lieutenant Commander Manwar, conducting rescue operation, upon his return to
A team of Bangladesh Navy will join the relief and rescue operations today to conduct search for survivors in the coastal unions in Patharghata, the officer said.
Our
According to primary estimates, some 2,500 educational institutions, 30,700 thatch houses and shanties have been damaged or completely destroyed rendering about three lakh people homeless in
Power supply resumed in
Educational institutions resumed classes in the city and some institutions revised annual examination schedules.
Prices of essential items, including rice, pulses, eggs, candles, and fuels have increased in local markets following the cyclone.
Road communications with the district headquarters, excepting Barguna, were partly restored on Saturday. Large trees downed by the cyclone were still lying on roads blocking traffic. Ferries in Barguna and Patuakhali were operating.
Most of the areas in the southern districts still remained without power causing immense sufferings to the people.
A fisherman of Bagerhat, Abdul Gafur (50) upon return from the sea said four of his fellow fishermen had gone missing during the storm. Three others survived by climbing up a tree and tying themselves up with a strong branch where they had spent the night before being rescued by volunteers.
The death count would increase as the division was continually updating the latest figures based on reports from various sources including the ministry of food and disaster management, said the Armed Forces Division at a press briefing at Dhaka cantonment.
Brigadier general Kazi Abidus Samad, director operations and plans of the division, and Lt Col Mainullah Chowdhury spoke at the briefing.
The district-wise death tolls stand at: 474 in Barguna, 460 in Bagerhat, 385 in Patuakhali, 134 in Pirojpur, 78 in Barisal, 46 in Madaripur, 29 in Bhola, 28 in Jhalakati, 27 in Gopalganj, 20 in Shariatpur and 12 in Khulna.
The armed forces were helping the civil administrations across the coastal areas in their efforts to restore road and telecommunications, providing treatment to the injured, trying to restore power supply and providing relief supplies to the cyclone-hit people, he said.
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