1,723 Dead in Bangladesh Cyclone

Associated Press (Via Google News) ^ | November 17, 2007 | PARVEEN AHMED

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — The official death toll from a savage cyclone that wreaked havoc on southwest Bangladesh reached 1,723 Saturday — the deadliest storm to hit the country in a decade.

Military helicopters and ships joined rescue and relief operations and aid workers on the ground struggled to reach victims. Tropical Cyclone Sidr tore apart villages, severely disrupted power lines and forced more than a million coastal villagers to evacuate to government shelters.

The latest death figure tallied to 1,723, with 474 deaths reported from worst-hit Barguna district and 385 from neighboring Patuakhali, a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Moyeenullah Chowdhury, told reporters in the capital, Dhaka.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

These big disasters in this part of the world take weeks to get the total number. It is obvious that the death toll will be substantially larger than Hurricane Katrina.

[EGPWS]

Harry Reid will be deeply saddened if the death toll achieves the toll in Iraq.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Wow, that’s pretty nasty. I hadn’t even heard that a cyclone was going to hit them. I guess the press was too busy with OJ and Barry Bonehead Bonds.

[Mike Darancette]

To put things in perspective a cyclone hit Bangladesh on 11/12/70 with a death toll of 300,000 - 500,000.

[Strategerist]

Well, there’s very little cool footage of this happening, and no missing blonde Norwegian tourist children, so media attention is going to be very low.

Also it’s going to be a long time for the true death toll - which I suspect will be in the tens of thousands -to get out.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Yes, I remember that, worse that the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, but there weren’t so many films of the destruction in that pre-camcorder disaster.

[17th Miss Regt]

Six posts so far and none has pointed out that this is the fault of George Bush. What is this world coming to??

[RightWhale]

Bangladesh seems to be a bad place to put a country. They get flooded out a lot, both from the sea and from the mountains as if the whole place is a flood plain.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

as if the whole place is a flood plain

Well that is about what it is, normally good for rice growing, frequently not so good for residences.

[billorites]

"Bangladesh seems to be a bad place to put a country."

Bangladesh is extremely densely populated with about 150 million people in an area about the size of Georgia.

Plus, the average person lives at an altitude of about 6 inches above sea level.

When a terrible natural disaster occurs, as they have regularly in the past century, the impoverished residents have no place to flee to and the government and other institutions have few resources with which to offer aid.

Increased food production and a decrease in famine during recent years has led to a population explosion that makes the number of flood fatalities even more pronounced.

The wisest and most conscientious physician I've ever met is from Bangladesh. We joke that he's the world's only fat Bengali.

[billorites]

Incredibly cheap labor adjacent to the Indian Ocean has permitted Bangladesh to become preeminent in the industry of ship breaking.

It's a long distance from ship breaking to opening a call center for Dell.

[ChiMark]

Let’s dig up George Harrison for another wasted
Bag the dish concert. Did not change the culture nor bring propsperity..
Millions upon millions of dollars given but useless.

This country’s only hope is to westernize and dump it’s pathetic culture. No planning, no flood control,
no advanced evacuations, no early alerts. A backward country where life is cheap. So sad.