Bhola Cyclone?

Question

Can anybody give me details on the 1970 Bhola Cyclone that hit Bangladesh?

Answer 1

Well, having participated in the project myself a bit, I know that everything in the Wikipedia article is correct. The death toll is estimated at 500,000, and perhaps upwards to 1,000,000, which makes it one of the deadliest natural disasters of all time (far eclipsing the recent Nargis, which is only eighth on the deadliest tropical cyclone list). This also makes it the deadliest tropical cyclone of all time. It is one of the factors that may have caused the separation of East Pakistan and its subsequent transformation into Bangladesh, given the poor response by the government. Intensity estimates, both by anemometers and based on satellite images of the storm at its peak intensity, read around 110 knots or 125 miles per hour, which is a strong category three.

This is always what you're comparing the level of devastation to in a storm. Nargis was bad; you can see images of the dead floating down the streets, and rows upon rows of obliterated houses. Imagine a calamity far beyond that in an even more compact area and you have the Bhola cyclone.

As to why the surge was so devastating - there are two reasons. One, of course, is the level of housing and protection given by the shacks most people must live in. The second, and the most important, is the river delta situation - the same geography that Nargis encountered in Myanmar. The Ganges river delta is a very large, very flat, and very, very flood-prone region of land covering most of southern Bangladesh. One could not imagine a place more likely to experience extreme death by tropical cyclone (though areas in China are more susceptible to regular floods - the number one and two disasters in terms of human life in recorded history both occured as a result of Chinese river flooding). Luckily, standards have improved - Sidr last year was kept to a somewhat sane death toll of 3000, though that loss exceeded almost every other cyclone (up until Nargis) of the past decade.

You know that program "Mega-disasters" on the History channel? Instead of such flights of fancy as hypercanes, North American super-tsunamis, and monster earthquakes occurring in inactive fault lines, they should be talking about the very real, very tragic, and insanely deadly storms that hit Bangladesh.

Does that cover it?