Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Cyclone hits Bihar & West bengal in north-east India!

At least 89 villagers died when a cyclone Knocked down 10 of 1000's of mud huts in north east India, officials reported today.


The cyclone struck overnight in the states of West Bengal and Bihar, with winds of more than 100mph uprooting trees and snapping telephone and electricity lines.

Devesh Chandra Thakur, Bihar's minister for disaster management, said there had been no weather department warning of a cyclone, so residents had been unprepared.

Television footage showed uprooted trees lying across shanties and sheets of corrugated metal ripped from roofs. Children sat outside damaged huts as parents tried to salvage their belongings from inside.

One West Bengal resident, 51-year-old Namita Biswas, said she and her husband had been sleeping in their hut when it was crushed by a tree broken by the cyclone. Her husband was killed.

The cyclone demolished nearly 50,000 mud huts in West Bengal and thousands more in Bihar, officials said. The worst-hit villages in West Bengal were Hematabad, Raiganj and Kiran Dighi, where police and rescue teams recovered 39 bodies, said Ramanuj Chakraborty, a senior official.

Another 50 people were killed in the north-eastern Bihar districts of Araria, Kishanganj and Purnea, according to government officials.

The authorities were starting today to send medical teams and food supplies to the cyclone-hit area, said Ramanuj Chakraborty, a West Bengal official. Temporary shelters were being set up for those who had lost their homes.

A prison wall collapsed in Bihar's Araria district, forcing authorities to shift more than 600 inmates to another prison.

Source: guardian.co.uk

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