Cyclone Sidr Strikes in the Heart of Misery

"The tragedy unfolds as we pass from village to village, believing at times that we are in a valley of death", reports Mohammad Selim, a rescue worker on post at Bagerhat, one of the regions the most affected by the passage of the cyclone Sidr. "The extent of the destruction is unimaginable. Along the seven kilometers that I traveled this morning, not a single building was standing", describes another witness.

Hour after hour the rescue workers discover new bodies in these regions on the southern coast of Bangladesh, swept Thursday night by winds of up to 250 km/hr. The Red Cross estimates between five and ten thousand the number of dead, with millions sustaining losses due to the wreckage. At least "nine hundred thousand families are in need", or seven million people, the organization says.

In this rural region, the livestock has been decimated. Bodies of cows lie in fields stretching to the horizon. The rice was due for harvest at the end of the month, but the crop has been ruined by salt water from the Indian Ocean. There will be nothing to eat for the coming months. The wells have also been destroyed, depriving the population of drinking water.

The most deadly cyclones on earth

Sidr is the worst storm that Bangladesh has seen in sixteen years. In 1970, the country was ravaged by a hurricane that caused a half million deaths. In 1991, it was a high tide that killed one hundred and thirty eight thousand persons. The tropical cyclones that take form in the north of the Indian Ocean, notably in the Bay of Bengal bordered by the southern coast of Bangladesh, the east of India and the west of Burma, are some of the deadliest on earth.

But the construction of cyclone shelters permitted a million and a half Bangladeshi to find shelter before the storm struck, thus limiting the loss of life. But even if the loss of life is less than in 1970 and 1991, the government fears "enormous economic damage" in this land of one hundred forty-four million inhabitants, forty percent of whom subsist on less than a dollar per day, which makes it one of the poorest nations on earth.

The interim government, in power since January under emergency powers, has mobilized the armed forces. The navy has sent ships loaded with tons of food and medicines, the air force has dispatched helicopters, and the troops of the land army attempt to reach isolated populations. But the routes are blocked by thousands of uprooted trees, when those routes have not simply disappeared.

In these districts ravaged and cut off from the world, survivors risk dying from thirst and hunger if they receive no aid. "Some ninety-five percent of the forty thousand homes in this sub-district were carried away", estimates Salim Khan, an official of the coastal village of Patharghata. There, dozens of shocked villagers wait for water, food and medicine. "Many isolated villages, especially on islands, have not been inspected" by the rescue workers, says, with concern, Heather Blackwell, the head of the Bangladesh branch of the British organization Oxfam.

The United Nations World Food Program has launched and appeal for help. A team of twelve experts from the United Nations has come to Bangladesh in order to evaluate the destruction and the humanitarian aid requirements. First reports indicate a grave and sinister situation, justifying world-wide help, declares the WFP, without specifying the amounts requested. The European Union, which had made a miserly contribution of 1.5 millions on Friday, has revised its aid upward to 6.5 million. This is still well beneath the amount of funds necessary.