The death toll of the devastating cyclone in Bangladesh climbed
to 1,860 till Sunday morning, according to the latest figure
released by the country's disaster management ministry.
However, unofficial casualty figure has exceeded 2,000 as
massive search operations into inaccessible areas continued.
The terrible cyclone Sidr lashed Bangladesh's south and
southwestern coastal regions on November 15 evening with a speed of
up to 240 km per hour, affecting some 25 out of the country's 64
districts.
The disaster management ministry prepared a rough estimate of
losses caused by Sidr that will be a severe blow to the economy,
which is already suffering huge losses from back-to-back floods in
the middle of this year.
The cyclone hit 103 sub-districts, affecting 2.75 million people
of about 844,000 families. The storm also killed 242,000 livestock
and completely destroyed crops on 18,122 acre (about 7, 339
hectares) land.
Besides, According to the estimate, 273,000 houses were totally
flattened.
(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2007)
