BARISAL, Bangladesh — At least one person
was killed and hundreds of thousands were evacuated Monday from the path of a
cyclone careening towards densely populated, low-lying
Bangladesh, according to
officials.
اضافة اعلان
About 33,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar,
controversially relocated to a storm-prone island in the Bay of Bengal, were
advised to remain indoors.
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.
But scientists
say climate change is likely making them more intense and frequent, and
Bangladesh is already rated by the UN as one of the countries most affected by
extreme weather events since the turn of the century.
Cyclone Sitrang, packing gusts of 88km/hour, was
forecast to make landfall near the southern Bangladeshi town of Khepupara by
Tuesday morning, the country’s weather office said.
Most worrying for authorities was the predicted
storm surge of up to 3m above normal tide levels, which could inundate areas
home to millions of people.
The government plans to evacuate about 2.5 million
people from the most vulnerable areas in the path of the storm before the
cyclone hits.
At least 250,000 people had already been evacuated
from coastal districts to cyclone shelters by the afternoon, two regional
administrators told AFP.
Tens of thousands of volunteers have been mobilized
for the effort, said a spokesman for the local chapter of the
Bangladesh Red Crescent Society.
“We have already evacuated the most vulnerable
people, especially those who live in remote islands and river banks and those
who live in flimsy houses,” Aminul Ahsan, regional administrator of Barisal,
told AFP.
“In some places
we have used force to bring people to cyclone shelters. It is for their own
safety,” another regional administrator said.
A 40-year-old woman was killed in the rural town of
Lohagara after she was hit by a branch of a tree, which fell in gusty winds,
Habibur Rahman, a district administrator, told AFP.
The Red Crescent Society has mobilized tens of
thousands of volunteers to alert people using loudhailers and help villagers
evacuate, spokesman Shahinur Rahman said.
The newly formed silt island of Bhashan Char, where
Bangladesh has been relocating Rohingya refugees to alleviate overcrowding in
their refugee camps, was also expected to be hit by heavy rains and strong
winds.
“The Bhashan Char shelters are protected by a (5m
high) embankment. Still, we asked people to stay at home,” a senior security
officer told AFP from the island.
The 1970 Bhola cyclone, one of the world’s worst
natural disasters, killed several hundred thousand people in Bangladesh — then
known as East Pakistan — and India.
In recent years, better forecasting and more
effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced the death toll from
such storms.
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