 |  Bangladesh's government says aid is now reaching remote areas  |
| |
Cyclone Sidr is known to have killed at least 2,400 people but there are fears the final toll could be much higher.
An estimated one million families are thought to have been affected.
Aid pledges have begun pouring in to help victims of the storm, which the government in Dhaka has described as a "national calamity".
Cyclone Sidr, which struck late on Thursday, brought winds of up to 240km/h (150mph) and a tidal surge of several metres.
It destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes, brought down power lines and wiped out vital crops.
I've been here waiting for hours for something to eat... what I've got so far are a few biscuits. Not enough 
Tens of thousands of survivors are now struggling for basic necessities like tents, rice and drinking water.
Bangladesh's Red Crescent society says up to 10,000 may have died.
The BBC's Mark Dummet, in Bangladesh, says there are scenes of devastation along the riverbanks in Barguna District, where people need shelter, food, water and medicines.
He describes hundreds of uprooted trees and knocked-down tin houses, and a river ferry lifted up by the tidal surge and dumped on the shore.
Though relief teams have now reached most of the remote communities in southern Bangladesh, our correspondent says delivering aid to many areas is extremely difficult and can only be done by boat.
'Acute stage'
Among major donors is the UK, which is sending $5m for relief efforts in addition to pledges from other nations and the European Union.
A spokesman for the UN World Food Programme in Bangladesh, which is overseeing the aid operation, said agencies had reacted "quickly and swiftly".
"The relief effort right now is in the acute stage, the beginning stages," Douglas Broderick told the BBC, adding that more than one million people had been fed so far.
Announcing $2m in aid, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the US would call in "a multitude of US government disaster relief agencies and departments" to help.
The EU, along with the governments of the UK, Germany, France and others have also announced aid pledges.
Early-warning system
The government has denied suggestions that it is not up to the relief task.
District official Shahidul Islam said: "We have enough food and water. We are going to overcome the problem."
A government early-warning system is being credited with saving many lives, but the damage to property and crops has been massive.
Officials say that in many areas 95% of rice which was awaiting harvest has been destroyed, and shrimp farms and other crops were simply washed away.
Cyclone Sidr comes just a few months after floods devastated the north of the country.
Southern Bangladesh is hit every year by cyclones and floods, but Cyclone Sidr is the most destructive storm to hit the country in more than a decade.
Another storm in 1991 left some 143,000 dead.
No comments:
Post a Comment