Cyclone Sidr on Collision Course with Bangladesh and Kolkata
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 11.15.07
A disaster of epic proportions is shaping up in the Bay of Bengal-but you wouldn't know it from following most mainstream news outlets. Tropical Cyclone Sidr, which has been rated a Category 4 storm (verging on Category 5, by some estimates), is headed towards Kolkata, India, and the west coast of Bangladesh.
The storm, whose winds had strengthened to 150 mph (241 km/h) yesterday night, is expected to make landfall later today. Meteorologists believe it will lose some of its steam before reaching Bangladesh and Kolkata; however, as Chris Mooney points out, those predictions have so far proven unfounded and, with little time remaining-having already left 40 ft high waves in its wake-Sidr is still likely to bring a massive wave of death and destruction.
As a point of comparison, it helps to recall that a cyclone that hit the region in 1991 resulted in the deaths of 138,000 people. Cyclone Sidr will become the sixth storm of the north Indian Ocean cyclone season; it is only the second major one (Category 3 or above) to make landfall this decade since Tropical Cyclone Mala struck Myanmar on April 28, 2006, leaving 22 casualties in its wake.
Via ::The Intersection: Time To Panic Over Cyclone Sidr (blog), ::Bloomberg: Tropical Cyclone Sidr Strengthens on Way to India, Bangladesh (news website)
See also: ::Heavy Rain Kills in UK, Pakistan and Bangladesh, ::Wunder Blog: Extremely dangerous Cyclone Sidr bears down on Bangladesh and India (blog), ::Higher Number of Atlantic Storms Linked to Global Warming
Image courtesy of JTWC
It was on CNN this morning and is still on their website. Our family is there.
Hope the people living in those areas take heed to the warnings and evacuate. Good post.
Guys , the cyclone was very devastating and it has caused a lot of damages. I have been working with some relief aid agencies especially with Red Cross & American Childcare. My best friends grandfather's house was gone and the near his village Chadpur the lake you could see dead cattles, it was just a horrible experience. The scale of such work is huge and all international aid agencies are still pledgeing for more aid. The aid currently arriving is either too slow or not enough. Every day people are dieing and death toll is increasing, its estimated around 10,000 people. But we can try our best to minimize it but donating all our spare dollars or cents to various aid agencies working in Bangladesh. Also, some of our friends to help these aid agecnies they have even started a website called http://www.helpthemsurvive.org which is conveying the messages of all aid agencies to the whole world. If people are interested to donate or help out, you can check the website and choose which ever aid agency you would like to donate or help out, sorry we dont collect money. Please, the longer we postpone the more death toll increases. So please “Help Us To Help Them Survive”. Join us and support www.helpthemsurvive.org . Help all thise aid agencies and help our help. Every dollar helps us to save one person life.