11 killed as Aila rips thru coastline
Courtesy New Age 26/5/09
|
|
At least eleven persons were killed, scores injured, large tracts of cropland damaged and several thousand houses totally or partially damaged when cyclone Aila made landfall on the India-Bangladesh coast near Sagardwip at a speed of 100 km per hour on Monday afternoon.
Tidal surges as high as seven-eight feet struck the coastal districts of
The authorities shifted the people from the vulnerable areas to cyclone shelters after a deep depression turned into a cyclone on Sunday night.
Fifty-two fishing trawlers, with 1,200 fishermen on board, which had ventured into deep sea earlier, are yet to reach the coast, said the trawler owners’ association in Patuakhali and Barguna.
Eight trawlers were capsized in Bhola and
The private television channels, meanwhile, said at least 20 people died in cyclone hit.
Standing Rabi crops in large tracts of cropland have been damaged in
Disaster management minister Abdur Razzaq, at a briefing in
The minister said the armed forces will also be deployed for relief operations along with 42,000 volunteers of the ministry. He said the government has allocated about 1,000 tonnes of rice and Tk 12 lakh in cash for relief operations.
Abdul Aziz Mallik, of Karpurkathi in Bauphal, died after a tree fell on him on Monday morning. Razzaq Gazi of village Hosnabad died from cardiac arrest at Bauphal cyclone shelter. Two year old girl Sumaiya drowned in Galachipa. Minor boy Rabbi, son of Rabiul Molla of Char Lakshmi Bardhan of Bakerganj, drowned on Monday noon. Maruf, 7, son of Saiful, and Rajib, 15, son of Abdul Mannan Majhi, were killed at Boyarchar in Hatiya, and Najma Akhtar, 7, of Nijhum Dwip died in the storm. Nazimuddin died as a trawler capsized at Char Kachchapia of Charfashon, and a minor girl, Rozina, died at Char Kalatali as their house collapsed on her. Amena Begum, 48, wife of Ayub Ali, and Shahida Begum,11, of Chargazaria in Ramgati of Laksmipur died as their
houses collapsed on them.
Aila, the second of the North Indian Ocean cyclones this season, hit the West Bengal coast near Sagardwip at about 2:00pm, and the eye of the storm crossed the coast, near
Work at the maritime ports of
The
River transportation in the southern region remained suspended as the authorities restricted the plying of vessels less than 65 feet in length. No vessel left
Several hundred villages in Satkhira, Bagerhat, Patuakhali, Barguna and Bhola went under water as the protective embankments were breached at least at 100 points in the coastal districts.
The Kalapara Met Office recorded 126 millimetres of rainfall in the past 24 hours, ending on Monday noon. A trawler sank at Char Kachchhapia of Char Fassion in Bhola because of gusty winds.
The wind was blowing at 60-80kmph in gusts or squalls in the coastal areas since Monday morning, and it sometimes reached the speed of more than 100kmph.
In the
The most affected upazilas in
The district administrations opened emergency control rooms in nine upazilas and asked people over loudspeakers to take shelter in safer places.
In Satkhira the tidal surge damaged a cross-dam and submerged many villages in Gabura and Padmapukur unions in Shyamnagar upazila on Monday morning. Locals said the cross-dam was damaged at eight points in the two unions. The district administration has already opened 285 cyclone shelters.
It has also asked the people of Shyamnagar and Ashashuni upazilas to take shelter in the centres.
The Bauphal upazila nirbahi officer, SM Ansaruzzman, told New Age that the administration had tried to shift the people from the remote chars as there is only a single cyclone shelter in Char Miajan. He said embankments were breached in many places in the coastal region and said that a 100-metre stretch of the Kalaiya-Nazirpur road was washed by high water.
The officer in charge of Galachipa police station, Nasir Mallick, said five persons had gone missing at Char Motahar and the administration was trying to rescue the people stranded in the chars but had failed so far due to the eight-ten feet high waves on the river’s estuary.
The New Age correspondent in Cox’s Bazar said hundreds of houses were washed away by the three to four feet high tidal surge in the coastal areas of the district.
The coastal embankment was also seriously damaged at several places from Teknaf to Kutubdia. The Cox’s
According to information gathered from the coastal areas of the district, at least 200 houses in Cox’s Bazar town, Kutubdia, Pekoua, Sha Parir Dwip and St Martin’s
Sarwar Kamal, acting mayor of the Cox’s Bazar municipality, said at least 5,000 houses adjacent to Cox’s Bazar airport were hit by tidal surges as high as three to five feet in the morning.
Md Shamsul Karim, executive engineer of the Cox’s Bazar Water Development Board, said that more than a hundred kilometres of coastal embankments were badly damaged by the tidal surge.
In Bhola over 300 houses in Doulatkhan upazila were damaged and a large area was inundated in Char Fasson, and Monpura upazila’s protection dam collapsed.
The low-lying areas of Nijhum Dwip in Noakhali went under 6-7 feet water and most of its inhabitants have been removed to cyclone shelters. The forest department officers fear that a number of deer living in the wildlife sanctuary have died due to the tidal surge.
Reports from Noakhali said 7km of embankments in Tamaraddi Bazaar in Hatiya upazila collapsed because of the surging water’s pressure.
__._,_.___