Cyclone hits Bangladesh after battering India, mass evacuations save lives
By Jatindra Dash and Ruma Paul
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A storm surge still breached embankments to submerge dozens of villages on Bangladesh's low-lying coast, a disaster ministry official in Dhaka said.
The storm also destroyed several houses in the Noakhali district, where a two-year-old child and a 12-year-old girl were killed and about 30 people were injured, local official Tanmoy Das told Reuters.
In all at least five people had been killed, 63 injured, and more than the 1,000 houses had been damaged, Bangladeshi authorities said.
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[...] As cyclone Fani approached, [the Indian state] Odisha moved 1.2 million people to safety in 24 hours, which [Chief Minister] Patnaik described as "one of the biggest human evacuations in history".
Shelters were set up in schools and other safe buildings to accommodate the evacuees, who included scores of tourists.
More than 100,000 government officials, 45,000 volunteers, and 2,000 civil society groups were mobilised, and 9,000 shelters and 7,000 kitchens pressed into service, Patnaik said.
"Instead of it being a tragedy of humongous proportions, we are in the process of restoring critical infrastructure," he said.
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About 1.2 million people living in the most vulnerable districts in Bangladesh had also been moved to some 4,000 shelters.
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