Thousands of Bangladeshis were left homeless and in shock on Thursday after a tornado ripped through their villages, killing at least 30 people just after celebrations for the Bengali New Year.
Twisted tin and uprooted trees littered the Netrokona district, 128km north of the capital Dhaka, while villagers wailed in mourning outside their levelled homes.
”My son was repairing our old home and suddenly the winds blew him away,” Hashim Ali (55) said in the debris of his house as tears rolled down his cheeks.
”When I found my son, he was dead. He was only 26 years old.”
Officials said 30 people were killed and more than 600 were injured. Newspaper reporters in the area said, however, they had counted up to 60 bodies.
The tornado and strong winds struck overnight as most villagers had gone to bed after a day of New Year revelry.
An AFP photographer saw thousands of people spending the first day of the Bengali New Year under an open sky as they waited for aid to arrive.
”We are rushing cash, rice, corrugated tin for making homes and clothes to the affected areas,” said Badrul Haider Patwary, chief of aid operations in the adjacent Mymensingh district.
Government ministers had gone to the disaster area, Patwary said.
Some of the injured suffered broken bones after being thrown through the air by the force of the storm, a police officer in Netrokona district said.
”Many of them are in hospitals in Netrokona and nearby districts and the actual toll will be clearer by Friday as rescue workers are still sifting through debris,” the officer said.
Rescue workers were also searching rice paddy fields, ponds and rivers for people reported missing.
”People saw a funnel which pulled up whatever came in its path, including some villagers, before throwing them miles away,” the officer said.
Patwary said about 270 people had been hospitalised in the Netrokona district.
Storms, tornadoes and cyclones are frequent in Bangladesh at the start of summer. — Sapa-AFP