Bangladesh orders maximum possible evacuation overnight

Bangladesh authorities have ordered evacuation of maximum possible number of people to safety before Tuesday midnight as intensifying wrath of the region’s first super cyclone in decades prompts the met office to contemplate issuing the highest danger signal number in their existing scale.

“The local authorities have been directed to complete the evacuation before midnight today,” state minister for disaster management and relief Enamur Rahman told an emergency news briefing at his office.

The disaster management ministry earlier set a target of evacuating over 2 million people to safety readying 12,078 cyclone shelter centres but the state minister said it could be difficult to move out people on Wednesday as the super cyclone continued to approach.

“The met office could issue their highest ‘great danger signal’ at 6:00am tomorrow (Wednesday) monitoring the situation overnight... so our goal is to move out all vulnerable people to safety by tonight,” Rahman said.

He said a large number of people, however, by now were brought to cyclone shelters in 19 vulnerable districts in the country’s southern coastlines.

Meteorologists said in a scale of 11, great danger signal no 8, 9 and 10 carry identical meaning in terms of intensity while the numbers differ only to indicate approaching storms directions.

Signal no. 11 is called Communication Failure Signal No. XI, indicating severed communications of the meteorological warning centre to the affected region.

The meteorologists said the world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, was likely to absorb the main brunt of the Amphan onslaughts as it did many times over the centuries, including that of the recent major storms, to minimise human casualties.

“The Sundarbans always absorbed the brunt of cyclones whichever hit the coastlines alongside the Bangladesh-India, we expect the forest to face the initial impact of Amphan like foot soldiers this time as well,” meteorology department director Shamsuddin Ahmed told newsmen.

Leading global storm tracker AccuWeather earlier today described Amphan as the first super cyclone in the Bay of Bengal since 1999, fearing the “ferocious” storm to unleash extreme impacts across Bangladeshi and northeastern Indian coastlines.

The latest bulletin issued by the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) said the cyclone ‘Amphan’ over West Central Bay and adjoining area moved northwards and lies over Westcentral Bay and adjoining Northwest Bay and was centred about 740 km Southwest of Chattogram port, 695 km Southwest of Cox’s Bazar Port, 615 km South-Southwest of Mongla port and 610 km South-Southwest of Payra Port at 9:00pm.

It is likely to move in a North-Northeasterly direction and may cross West Bengal-Bangladesh coast near the Sundarbans during afternoon or evening of Wednesday, the BMD special bulletin no. 28 said.

Indian met office in a near identical statement said Amphan was very likely to move north-north-eastwards across northwest Bay of Bengal and cross West Bengal-Bangladesh coasts.

It predicted the path to be between Indian West Bengal’s Digha and Bangladesh’s Hatiya Islands close to Sundarbans “during afternoon to evening hours of Wednesday with maximum sustained wind speed of 155-165 kph gusting to 185kph.”

The state minister said around 2.2 million coastal people are being taken to cyclone shelter centres by now “a huge number of people have already been shifted to the shelter centres”.

Reports from the low-lying coastlines, however, said officials and volunteers were struggling to motivate people to move to safety as many were found unwilling to take refuge in shelters leaving valuables and cattle unprotected at their homestead.

Officials said arrangements were made for the cattle as well along the cyclone shelters, where people could stay maintaining physical distancing as part of COVID-19 precautions.

Rahman said all-out preparation were taken to face Amphan, while a control room was set up to know the update of evacuation activities to save people from the super cyclone.

He said the health ministry also took measures to provide treatment facilities for the coastal people readying medical teams with necessary medicines to this end.

The junior minister said the army and navy troops were also engaged to assist the local administrations in bringing the vulnerable coastal people to safe places as they were already at the scene on COVID-19 duty.

“All big ships were taken to safe areas to avoid damage,” he said.

He said there are 12,078 cyclone shelter centres in the coastal districts, which have the capacity of accommodating around 5.2 million people during any disaster.

“But, only 2 to 2.2 million people will be accommodated in these shelter centres to maintain social distancing due to coronavirus fear.

The authorities concerned have been asked to ensure one metre distancing in bringing people to the cyclone centres,” Enamur said.