Cyclone Roanu strikes coastlines

The tropical cyclone codenamed Roanu hit the country's coast at midday today with high tidal surges ravaging structures and uprooting trees in shorelines with reports saying five people were killed in the disaster so far. 

Officials and local residents said the cyclonic storm and surges destroyed a number of embankments on the shorelines stretching from the south-western to south-eastern coastlines inundating neighbourhoods. 

Meteorologists said the cyclone first hit the south-western coast and then proceeded towards the southeast turning the sea very rough while they feared the influence of full moon to aggravate its intensity as it was likely to ravage the coastlines for at least six hours until later this evening. 

"The confluence of the Meghna river is likely to bear the worst brunt of the cyclone," a meteorologist told BSS. 

Residents and officials in Chittagong said they were experiencing wind speed of 80 kilometres per hour that uprooted a number of trees and electric poles disrupting power supplies. 

"The coastlines at Patenga (port area) is severely ravaged by the tidal surges, completely destroying a makeshift tourist market as the cyclone appears to have started hitting the region along with downpours," a resident from the Patenga port area said. 

Officials and residents reached in Dhaka by phone said several embankments meant for protecting the coastline from surges were washed away by the cyclone inundating localities in coastal areas particularly in Hatia, Anwara and Banskhali of Chittagong. 

Officials and reports earlier said under the peripheral impact of the cyclone several hundred village huts in the south-western coastal Bhola district were destroyed leaving the two dead and over 100 wounded. 

The reports said a minor child and a woman in Bhola and another person in Patuakhali district appeared to be the first victims of the cyclone which continued to advance keeping an edge with the coastlines from the south-westerly direction towards the southwest.

BSS Chittagong Bureau office confirmed that a woman and his daughter were killed in landslide which caused due to heavy downpour early this morning at the hilly Salimpur area of the port city. 

A special met office bulletin issued this morning said their Doppler radar network found the cyclone to have advanced further to the coastlines while it was located at about 255-km west-southwest of Chittagong port, 230-km west-southwest of Cox's Bazar Port,190-km south of Mongla Port and 135-km south of Payra Port at 6 in the morning.

The met office late yesterday turned its "local warning signals" to "danger signals" for all its four seaports, asking ports of southwestern Mongla, Payra and southeastern Chittagong to hoist signal number 7and southeastern Cox's Bazar 6, on the scale of 10.

Source: BSS.