Dhaka – A powerful tropical cyclone in the Bay of has lashed the coastline of Bangladesh and neighbouring India, leaving at least 10 people dead, officials said on Monday.
The cyclone, named Remal which had crossed the coast with wind speed up to 120 kilometers per hour and was now weakened into a land depression, also wreaked havoc in the southern districts and putting millions of coastal residents without power.
Many coastal villages were inundated by strong tidal surge that was accompanied with the gusty wind. Thatched houses were damaged, trees uprooted and electric poles toppled.
State Minister for Disaster Management and Relief Muhibur Rahman said that ten people were killed and more than 150,000 houses were damaged, according to the initial assessment reports.
He said the cyclone affected nearly 3.7 million coastal residents.
Electricity connections to vast areas remained suspended since Sunday night, the state minister said adding that the Rural Electrification Board had been trying to restore the power line.
Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry in a statement said more than 27 million electricity subscribers under the Rural Electrification Board are without power. But the Board resumed connections to some 321,000 subscribers until Monday evening.
Earlier, the government moved more than 800,000 coastal residents to over 9,000 cyclone shelters. Many of them started returning to their homes as the intensity of the storm reduced.
The cyclone Remal is the first tropical storm in the Bay of Bengal that hit Bangladesh this year after the South Asian country experienced longest-ever heatwave in April.
The Bangladeshi coastline is often hit by deadly tropical cyclones that are formed in the Bay of Bengal.
More than 450,000 people have been killed in 12 major cyclones that have hit the Bangladeshi coastline since 1965, according to Bangladesh’s 2016 report on disaster management preparedness.
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