At least 2,206 people have died since the storm struck Bangladesh on Thursday, said Selina Shahid of the Ministry of Food and Disaster Management. The toll could rise still higher as more information comes in from battered regions.

Disaster Management Secretary Aiyub Bhuiyan met Sunday with representatives from the United Nations and international aid groups to discuss the massive relief effort.

"The donors wanted to know about our plan and how they can come forward to stand by the victims," Bhuiyan told reporters. "We have briefed them about what we need immediately."

Rescuers struggled to clear roads and get their vehicles through, but many found the way impassable. "We will try again ... on bicycles, and hire local country boats," M. Shakil Anwar of CARE said from the city of Khulna.

At least 1.5 million coastal villagers had fled to shelters where they were given emergency rations, said senior government official Ali Imam Majumder in the capital, Dhaka.

The worst-hit area was Bagerhat district, where 610 people died, said Ashraful Zaman, an official at a cyclone monitoring center in Dhaka.

"We have seen more bodies floating in the sea," fisherman Zakir Hossain from the country's southwest said, after reaching shore with two decomposing bodies he and other fishermen had found on their way.

Sidr's 150 mph winds smashed tens of thousands of homes Thursday in southwestern Bangladesh and ruined crops just before the harvest season. Ferries were flung ashore like toy boats.

Aid organizations said they feared food shortages and contaminated water could lead to widespread problems if people remain stranded.

Storms batter impoverished, low-lying Bangladesh every year, often killing large numbers of people. This time a government early warning program saved a vast number of lives, U.N. Resident Coordinator Renata Dessallien said in a statement.

However, property damage was massive. Many evacuees who returned home Saturday found their bamboo-and-straw huts flattened.

"We survived, but what we need now is help to rebuild our homes," said Chand Miah of the small island of Maran Char.

An estimated 2.7 million people were affected and 773,000 houses were damaged, according to the Ministry of Disaster Management. Roughly 250,000 cattle and poultry perished, and crops were destroyed along huge swaths of land.

The government said it has allocated $5.2 million in emergency aid for rebuilding houses.

Several countries pledged to help.

The U.S. government has provided $2.1 million in initial emergency relief, White House press secretary Dana Perino said, noting that President Bush offered condolences to victims.

She said that the ships USS Essex and the USS Kearsage were en route to Bangladesh to help with relief operations, and that the U.S. would airlift 35 tons of non-food items such as plastic sheeting and hygiene kits.

The United Nations released $7 million, while the German government offered $731,000. The European Union released $2.2 million, and British officials said they would give $5 million.

The Rome-based World Food Program was rushing in food, and the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society was sending thousands of workers to stricken areas.

16th November 2007

A powerful cyclone smashed into Bangladesh killing more than 150 people as it uprooted trees, destroyed homes and forced tens of thousands to flee for their lives, officials said on Friday.

The eye of Cyclone Sidr, shown in satellite images as a huge swirling white mass moving in from the Bay of Bengal, hit land on Thursday night before sweeping north towards the capital Dhaka.

Exact figure of losses of lives and properties could not be known immediately. But it was reported that one body was recovered after a boat with 15 passengers capsized in Kholapatua river near Noabeki ghat in Shyamnagar upazila of Satkhira. Three passengers were still missing as of 9:30pm yesterday. "We have been told by police that over 150 people died in the cyclone," said Major Emdadul Islam of the army control room.

Most deaths were caused by trees crushing flimsy homes made of bamboo and tin, said police.

The extent of the damage caused by Sidr was expected to be severe and the number of casualties high, officials said. "Many trees have been uprooted and houses and schools blown away," said Mostofa Kamal, a district relief official in Barisal, 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of Dhaka.

Southern areas were plunged into darkness as electricity supply lines were snapped and "innumerable" homes flattened, a private news agency reported, quoting its correspondents.

Wind speeds of 220-240 kilometres (140-155 miles) an hour were recorded in what officials described as one of the worst storms in years.

Tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of people in the southwest spent the night in special evacuation shelters in a bid to avoid the massive casualties of previous cyclones.

Although officials said they were optimistic the death toll would not be in the thousands, they feared widespread destruction.

"We expect the damage to be enormous," said an official of the disaster management and relief ministry.

The dead included an elderly man who drowned when a boat carrying 17 people across a river in southern Satkhira district capsised during the storm. The other passengers were able to swim ashore, an official said.

Experts described Sidr as similar in strength to the 1991 storm that triggered a tidal wave that killed an estimated 138,000 people.

Bangladesh has since set up an early warning system and a network of shelters in vulnerable coastal areas.
The head of the Bangladeshi meteorological department, Samarendra Karmakar, said he was optimistic the evacuation programme would spare the country the huge loss of life seen in previous decades.

"It is not less severe than the 1991 cyclone, in some places it is more severe. But we are expecting less casualties this time because the government took early measures. We alerted people to be evacuated early," he said.

India escaped the fury of the cyclone, which forecasters said would lose strength on Saturday just south of the mountain kingdom of Bhutan.