Bangladesh braced for super cyclone

Updated 15.29 Thu Nov 15 2007

Keywords: cyclone, India, Bangladesh

Thousands of people are being evacuated to shelters as a super cyclone approaches Bangladesh's southwest coastline.

London-based Tropical Storm Risk said Cyclone Sidr was a Category 4 storm, packing winds of 155mph.

Nearly ten million Bangladeshis live along the southern coast, which usually takes the brunt of cyclones, but the area has shelters for only about half a million

The group said Sidr is heading due north on a course that will take it over the heavily populated southern coast and then towards the capital, Dhaka.

Cyclones can cause immense devastation in disaster-prone Bangladesh, a low-lying country of more than 140 million people.

Officials at Cox's Bazar, a popular tourist destination, said they had evacuated nearly 200,000 people to about 600 government and private shelters and asked others to move on their own.

Nearly ten million Bangladeshis live along the southern coast, which usually takes the brunt of cyclones, but the area has shelters for only about half a million.

The meteorology department raised the danger signal to number 10, the highest, at Mongla, Bangladesh's second main sea port, and number 9 at Chittagong and Cox's Bazar.

The storm is also expected to hit India's West Bengal coast with wind speeds of up to 125mph, said BP Yadav, a senior weather official."We have suggested evacuation of people from the region," he added.

As severe cyclones make landfall, storm surges can cause water to rise up to five metres (16 feet), weather experts have said.

Rivers flowing into the Bay of Bengal along parts of the southern coast have all swollen and are still rising, water department officials said.

"From my window, I can see tins ripped off the roofs and tree branches flying under the sky covered with thick clouds," said Moulvi Feroze Ahmed, a local government official on St Martin's island in the Bay of Bengal near the storm.

"It looks like the sea is coming to grab us. It has been rough with high waves. The storm has already triggered a three-foot high water surge."

Storms batter the poor south Asian country every year. A severe cyclone killed more than half a million people in 1970, while one in 1991 killed 143,000 people.