1. Bangladesh Ravaged By Massive Cyclone Sidr . Hundreds of human lives are lost. The death toll is rising every passing hour as news keeps trickling in.

2. So far 587 687 693 1000 1595 3114 are believed/reported dead.

3. Hundreds of densely inhabited islands around the Genges delta and northern Bay of Bengal so far remain unaccounted for.

4. Unprecedented damage to property and cattlehead are being reported from Bhola ( eye of 1970 Bhola Cyclone) and other southern districts in Bangladesh. Aerial footages show that miles after miles, villages after villages have been turned into a total rubble. It feels like 10,000 tornados simulteniously ravaged a 200 mile radius area.

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Photo: AFP

5. While all form of communication including electricity, telecommunication, road-river transportation remain disrupted in the southern Bangladesh, rest of Bangladesh remains under darkness

6. As the category 4 cyclone had its landfall near Sundarban, irreparable damage have been done to the flora and fauna in the Sundarbans. It will take many years to know how mnay of several hundred Bengal tigers survived the 20 feet tidal waves.

7. Although the capital city of Dhaka ( around 100 miles inland) historically was never affected by bay of Bengal storms, this time Dhaka has been badly affected. Several death have already been reported from Dhaka, mostly by tree or building collapse. [ On apersonal note: a very nostalgic and loved spot of mine was the bat tala, benyan Shade inside PG Hospital / BSMMU campus. That 100 year old benyan tree has been uprooted by the storm, keeping a security guard trapped under it for four hours]. Hundreds of thoyusands of much needed greenery around bangladesh has been destroyed. Dhaka has no power supply all day. Non stop rain and sudden drop in temperature have made the life of the homeless people more miserable.

Update 1:

This email was sent from Dhaka earlier tonight,

… entire country is without electricity for last 24 hrs! We started getting power for an hour from 10:30PM tonight & no cable connection is available . Dhaka is like a deserted ghost city with everything closed even including the gas stations ! I tried to get to the net from my pocket PC couple of times but couldn’t get any net connectivity ! Lets hope that things are back to normal tomorrow .

Update 2:

Rezwan has an excellent round up of experiences from Bangladesh and analysis from abroad.

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