BANGLADESH: Cyclone Toll Exceeds 3,100

By GRAHAM BOWLEY, New York Times November 20, 2007 The number of people left dead after the powerful cyclone that swept through Bangladesh on Thursday rose to more than 3,100 yesterday, the government said. The United Nations estimated that a million people had been left homeless, many of them in remote areas without predictable food supplies. The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society warned Sunday that the number of dead could conceivably be 5,000 to 10,000, and the United Nations World Food Program said that it would not be surprised by such a tally. But yesterday the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said that reports from its officials who had been to the hardest-hit areas led the organization to expect a final toll in line with the government’s official assessment. “What we are seeing on the ground is not as horrifying,” said Devendra Tak, a senior regional spokesman for the federation, who spoke from Khulna, a town in southern Bangladesh, after visiting some of the districts that took the worst pounding from the cyclone, which had winds of more than 100 miles an hour. “We don’t see the level of destruction that we had feared earlier.” Mr. Tak said thousands of fishermen who had been missing along the coastal areas and presumed dead had begun to turn up in their villages. “We are very optimistic that the overall disaster will not be on a very high level,” Mr. Tak said by telephone. The United Nations said that it was waiting for a fuller picture to emerge and that the final death toll could still be significantly higher. Usha Mishra, a senior adviser at the United Nations World Food Program, said food supplies had been severely disrupted, creating a risk of famine. She said the program had begun to distribute food and that more serious emergency operations were being considered, including broader food distribution and rebuilding of homes. “Shelter is the big need right now,” she said. “One million people have been turned homeless.” The government’s officially confirmed death toll from the cyclone reached 3,113, said Lt. Col. Main Ullah Chowdhury, a spokesman for the army, according to The Associated Press. In Khatachira, near the edge of the Sunderbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, villagers have so far buried 57 of their own, nearly half of them children under age 10. Many probably died because they could not swim or cling to trees. On Tuesday morning another body, that of a local woman, was found in the bush of a neighboring village; she had yet to be brought home for burial. All but seven people had been accounted for. An old man who lost his entire family was searching for the bodies of his two grandchildren. Another old man said his granddaughter, age 8, was still missing. A woman with a hideous gash on her right foot — from a piece of tin roofing that fell and sliced her skin — said four in her family had been killed, and five were left to carry on. The nearest cyclone shelter was about two and a half miles away, and it had swelled well past capacity by the time most people in this village were ready to evacuate. One woman even went to the shelter, went home after it seemed that the storm was not coming, and was killed. “See over there, that was our house,” said Muhammad Himayat, pointing at an open stretch of paddy. The house is gone, along with two dozen goats, two cows and three fishing boats that together were the family’s livelihood. “It is all river now.” This is what the villagers said among themselves: “Where’s Salem?” one man asked. “He lost his son,” someone responded. “Has the grandson been found?” “No.” Scientists studying climate change in this part of the world say they expect extreme weather, including cyclones and powerful tropical storms, to rise in frequency here. And the United Nations has increasingly warned of the high toll these disasters exact on the poor. The survivors of Cyclone Sidr are among the poorest of the poorest, in one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world. The government has appealed for international aid and in a rare gesture, opened its visa gates to foreigners, including journalists. Officials said relief workers and the military had reached the last remaining pockets of the devastated areas on Tuesday, Reuters reported. But food supplies remained woefully inadequate. “Hundreds of hands go up to grab just one food packet,” said a relief worker in the Patuakhali district. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company