Typhoon Amphan: Thousands of people in India and Bangladesh have been displaced by storms

The disaster teams worked all night and until Thursday morning in the states of West Bengal and Odisha in India, cutting down trees and other debris from the road.

“All nations stand in solidarity with West Bengal,” he wrote. “My thoughts were with the Odisha people when the country bravely fought against the effects of the Typhoon Amphan.”

Sunderbans Island ‘pounded’

S.N. Pradhan, director general of the Indian National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF), said the worst damage had occurred in the two coastal districts of West Bengal and that Sundanese people had been “destroyed” by the typhoon.

Sunderbans are a group of ecologically fragile low-lying islands spread across India and Bangladesh, known for mangrove forests and endangered wildlife, including endangered Bengal tigers.

“The maximum impact, as expected has been seen there,” Pradhan said.

Four of the least affected districts of the country can operate in four to six days, and parts of Odisha’s coast are expected to return tonight, he said.

“People have started to move from shelters to assess the damage to their homes. Some have even begun to repair their damaged homes,” Pradhan said.

In Kolkata, the largest city in the direct lane of the typhoon and home to 14 million people, Pradhan said that many trees had been uprooted and “the city has never seen such strong winds.”

Typhoon Amphan is a bigger disaster than a coronavirus outbreak, Banerjee state chief minister said at a press conference on Wednesday.

“The entire southern part of the state has been affected. We are shocked,” the chief minister said. “The cyclone has affected electricity supplies and destroyed many homes, bridges and embankments.”

In areas affected by typhoons, many villagers live in temporary houses with thatched or thatched roofs, which are easily swept away by strong winds.

In Bangladesh, almost every coastal district has been seriously affected by Typhoon Amphan, according to Ranjit Kumar Sen, an official at Bangladesh’s Ministry of Management and Disaster Relief.

Sen said that the damage along the coast was “huge.” Of the 10 killed in the country, five are in the state of Barisal – including Red Crescent volunteers – four in Khuna, and one in Chittagong.

Some dams that are not properly maintained strike even before the typhoon makes landfall, causing massive flooding in some parts of the country.

Snigdha Chakraborty, with the Catholic Relief Services charity, said the country saw storms surging as high as 4.5 meters, flooding homes across the country.

Amphan weakened to the equivalent of an Atlantic tropical storm when crossing the border between West Bengal and Bangladesh early Thursday, but it still flapped strong winds up to 110 kilometers per hour (68 miles per hour). This system is expected to continue to weaken for the next 24 hours while moving northeast.

The next danger will come from heavy rains, which can cause flash floods throughout the region until Thursday morning.

Mass evacuation and coronavirus

Ambitious evacuations carried out by India and Bangladesh saw around 3 million people move to safety in both countries, according to regional authorities.

The relief operation came even though India and Bangladesh were still under strict locking orders due to coronavirus. The virus, which continues to spread in both countries, has complicated the emergency response, as aid teams wrestle with how to make people safe while also protecting them against the risk of Covid-19.

India passed more than 100,000 confirmed infections earlier this week, according to Johns Hopkins University, and recorded the biggest one-day surge on Wednesday with 5,611 new cases. Meanwhile, the number of infections in Bangladesh is increasing rapidly, with more than 1,300 new cases on Sunday, the largest increase to date. In total, the country has recorded 26,738 confirmed infections, according to Johns Hopkins.

In Odisha, where more than 150,000 people were evacuated, a total of 211 of the 809 permanent state hurricane shelters were used as the Covid-19 quarantine center.

“Social alignment is clearly a very good concept but enforcing it in the strictest way possible in a disaster situation may not always be possible,” he said.

In West Bengal India, which bears the burden of a hurricane, around 500,000 people are temporarily sheltered in storm shelters, according to authorities, while in Bangladesh the government says they have evacuated 2.4 million people and around 40,000 farm animals.

It is unknown when many of these people will be able to return home. Oxfam Bangladesh’s director, Dipankar Datta, said on Wednesday that thousands of emergency homes in Bangladesh had been revoked because of the typhoon.

In what appears to be a glimmer of hope, Chakraborty of the Catholic Relief Service has not reported any major damage so far in the refugee camps at Cox’s Bazar, which is home to nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees and a source of concern. to help workers after Covid-19 cases were identified there last week.

Some shelters were weak damaged in the storm and now need to be repaired, he said.

Despite concerns that rainfall from storms – despite landing on the other side of Bangladesh – could still cause landslides and floods in the camps.