Deadly Cyclone Remal leaves path of destruction along Bangladesh coasts

People along the coast find their homes devastated by the cyclone as they start to return home

Selim, a resident of coastal district Barguna who gave a single name, had lost his ancestral home to riverbank erosion a long time ago. The family have been living in a shanty since.

“The flood has taken away that house too. There’s no one but Allah who can save us now,” lamented the man from Naltona village in Sadar Upazila after severe cyclone Remal destroyed tens of thousands homes along the coasts of Bangladesh from Sunday night to Monday afternoon.

They were particularly affected by storm surge of up to 12 feet high above the normal astronomical tide.

“I haven’t seen such flooding during a storm in the past 10 years,” said Iqbal Hossain, a trader of Barguna town. He estimates damage worth Tk 200,000 caused by the storm to his business.

Barishal City was also deluged by the cyclone. Ferdous Rahman, a resident of the city’s Brown Compound, said: “There’s no electricity and mobile network since Sunday midnight. The streets are under knee-deep water. We’re in a helpless state.”

Altaf Hossain Mithu, a shrimp and poultry farmer in Satkhira’s Shyamnagar, stood in front of the destroyed chicken shed at Kalbari village in the afternoon when the storm weakened. More than 200 chickens were killed.

The human toll in six districts from the cyclone stood at 12 by the afternoon.

They were washed away with storm surge or crushed under collapsed homes and walls or fallen trees.

People along the coasts of Bangladesh found their homes devastated by the cyclone as they started to return from storm shelters or relatives’ homes.

Swathes of cropland and shrimp farms were inundated.

Besides the deaths and destruction of properties, the sufferings of the residents of the coastal areas were immense, with 27 million of them without power.

The cyclone also disrupted around 22,000 telecom towers, leaving millions without mobile service.

State Minister for Disaster Management and Relief Mohibbur Rahman said the cyclone destroyed nearly 35,000 homes across 19 districts. An additional 115,000 homes were partially damaged.

"Many areas remain waterlogged, and fish enclosures and trees have been devastated. As more information becomes available, the full scope of the impact will be clearer."

More than 8.4 million people, including 3.2 million children, are at high health, nutrition, sanitation and safety risk, said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative to Bangladesh.

Cyclone Remal is the first of the frequent storms expected to pound the low-lying coasts of the South Asian neighbours this year as climate change drives up surface temperatures at sea.

Packing speeds of up to 135 kph, it crossed the area around Bangladesh's southern port of Mongla and the adjoining Sagar Islands in India's West Bengal late on Sunday, weather officials said, making landfall at about 9pm.

The rain and high tides damaged some embankments and flooded coastal areas in the Sundarbans, home to some of the world's largest mangrove forests, which are shared by India and Bangladesh.

Mihir Kumar Doe, conservator of forest in Khulna, said most of the Sundarbans was under water because of the storm. “Most of the areas have been inundated by 8-10 feet high surge,” he said.

He expressed concerns over the impact of the storm on wildlife. The Forest Department rescued several deers and found several others dead.

“There's also been Infrastructural damage. It will take time to address these issues,” Mihir said.

In capital Dhaka, flooded roads amid heavy, incessant rains disrupted travel. Residents of Chattogram also suffered immensely because of waterlogging.

In the north, far away from the coasts, the authorities suspended operations at Saidpur Airport in Nilphamari because of bad weather under the influence of the storm.

The airport cancelled six flights of four airlines.