PATUAKHALI: At least 800,000 Bangladeshis fled their coastal villages on Sunday for concrete storm shelters further inland as the low-lying South Asian nation prepared for crashing waves when a cyclone makes landfall, top government disaster officials said.
Cyclone Remal is set to reach the southern coast and areas of neighboring India on Sunday evening, with Bangladesh’s weather department forecasting howling gales and gusts of up to 130 kilometers per hour.
Cyclones have killed hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh in recent decades, but the number of superstorms hitting its densely populated coast has gone up sharply — from one a year to as many as 3 — due to the impact of climate change.
Muhammad Abul Kalam Mallik, the senior weather official, said that the cyclone could unleash a storm surge of up to twelve feet (4 meters) above normal astronomical tide, which can be dangerous, according to AFP.
Most of the coastal areas of Bangladesh are a meter or two above sea level and high storm surges can devastate villages.
Officials have raised the danger signal to its highest level, warning fishermen against going to the sea and giving an evacuation order for those in at-risk areas.
As people fled, police said that a heavily laden ferry carrying over 50 passengers — double its capacity — was swamped by rough waters and sank near Mongla, a port in the expected path of the storm.
Local police chief Mushfiqur Rahman Tushar said that at least 13 people were injured and were taken to a hospital. Other boats plucked the passengers to safety.
The government’s disaster management secretary Kamrul Hasan said that orders had been issued to ensure people moved from “unsafe and vulnerable” homes.
Bangladesh Government Mobilizes Volunteers
The authorities have mobilized tens of thousands of volunteers to alert the public to the danger, but local officials said many people were staying home as they feared their property would be stolen if they left.
He said around four thousand cyclone shelters have been readied along the country’s lengthy coast on the Bay of Bengal, with the cyclone likely to hit a 220-kilometre stretch from India’s Sagar Island to Khepupara in Bangladesh.
The state-run Bangladesh Meteorological Department predicted Cyclone Remal would make landfall on Sunday by midnight (1800 GMT).
