At least 64 people died and hundreds of thousands were displaced after powerful storms left a trail of devastation across the Indian and Bangladeshi coasts in the Bay of Bengal, officials said on Wednesday.
The southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh bore the brunt of the storms, which killed 58 people in the region, provincial Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy told reporters.
Officials had earlier placed the state’s death toll at 27.
Six more people have died in storm-hit Orissa state, which adjoins Andhra Pradesh.
”The situation is very grim and so far we have evacuated 150 000 displaced people to 473 relief camps in 10 of the 23 districts hit by the storms,” Reddy said in the state capital, Hyderabad.
Reddy said 9 747 houses were wrecked by the storms and another 82 353 homes partially submerged in the coastal districts.
Andhra Pradesh agriculture minister Crop Raghuveera Reddy said the rains accompanied by buffeting winds have caused damage worth 180-billion rupees ($420-million) to crops, state facilities and homes.
Reddy, in a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is visiting Andhra Pradesh, also sought federal assistance of 120-billion rupees.
”Apart from the financial assistance, we have also sought 1,2-million tonnes of rice and the prime minister’s response was quite positive,” chief minister Reddy added.
The torrent submerged roads and rail tracks as winds flattened tens of thousands of trees and power poles, witnesses said.
Officials sounded a flood alert after opening the sluice gates of a brimming reservoir in the state’s Vijaywada district, where a levee on the swirling Krishna River burst on Wednesday and flooded the township of Ajitnagar.
The airport in the port city of Vishakapatnam was closed for the third straight day on Wednesday, the air force said, adding that military helicopters were evacuating marooned people.
In Orissa, the administration evacuated 12 000 people from low-lying areas in 10 of the state’s 30 districts, said revenue secretary Tarunkanti Mishra.
He said more than 25 000ha of crops have been destroyed due to rains that have lashed the state since Friday.
The weather office in the Orissa state capital, Bhubaneswar, forecast more rain for the province in the next 48 hours.
Coast-guard ships were scouring the bay for 73 fishermen reported missing from the two southern states.
The lashing rains spilled into the southernmost state of Tamil Nadu, disrupting rail services. The storm also swept across West Bengal state, flooding islets dotting the Sundarban mangrove forests off the bay.
In southern Bangladesh, tidal waves of up to 1,3m on Monday swamped some villages and forced about 12 000 people to flee their homes, officials in Dhaka said.
By Wednesday, most had returned home after the waters subsided.
Shamsul Alam, relief officer of Barguna district where many fishing trawlers are based, said at least 26 fishermen were reported missing but it was not clear whether they had perished or were merely unaccounted for.
Storms and cyclones that form over the Bay of Bengal in September and October every year kill hundreds and destroy cattle and crops in India’s eastern states and in Bangladesh.
A super-cyclone that hit Orissa in 1999 claimed about 10 000 lives. — AFP
