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Potentially high casualty disaster thwarted by

A cyclone with wind speed of 160 mph (260 km/h) formed in the Bay of Bengal and hit south of Bangladesh on 15 November 2007. Over 3,400 people were killed - though some estimation put the death tolls as high as 10,000. Upto £1 billion worth of damage was done to the country.

Maximum damage in Barisal bibhag

The cyclone flattened thousands of flimsy bamboo straw and mud huts, uprooted 60-80% of trees, electricity and telephone poles, and destroyed crops and fish farms in 15 coastal districts. The worst hit areas were communities in southern Bangladesh where most of the victims were killed by falling trees or debris from collapsing homes, while some drowned after falling off boats.

At the country's two main seaports — Chittagong and Mongla — operations were suspended. Ferry services and flights were halted throughout the coastal region.

The entire cities of Patuakhali, Barguna and Jhalokati District in Barisal bibhag were hit hard by the storm surge of over 5 meters (16 ft). The hardest-hit area was Barguna, where 423 people were reported to have been killed, according to local officials. Neighbouring Patuakhali was also hard-hit, with 385 deaths reported. Most of the deaths confirmed thus far were due to the winds, although 13 of them have been as a result of capsized boats in the Faridpur district of Bangladesh. Over 3,000 other fishermen were reported missing on over 500 fishing boats.

We have lost everything. We have nowhere to go.

A farmer

About a quarter of the world heritage site Sunderbans were damaged. Researchers said Sunderban will take at least 40 years to recover itself from this catastrophe. Much of the capital city of Dhaka was also severely affected, as electricity and water service were cut and significant damage was reported there due to winds and flooding. The local agricultural industry was also devastated as many rice crops, which have a December harvest, were lost.

The storm spared India's eastern coast, where the weather was calm. Heavy rain and flooding nevertheless did affect West Bengal and Orissa states located west of Bangladesh.

Lesson learnt from past

A cyclone of a similar magnitude that hit Bangladesh in 1991 killed 190,000 people. An even stronger one in 1970 left 300,000 dead and was the trigger for the early warning mechanism being put in place.

Forecast heights of the storm surge predicted by a numerical model developed by Dr. Hassan Mashriqui (Louisiana State University) was communicated to the emergency response authorities in Bangladesh, prompting a massive evacuations of low-lying coastal areas. A total of 2 million people in Bangladesh evacuated to emergency shelters.

Without this system, the losses would have been as bad as the cyclone in 1991

Salvano Briceno, Director of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

Chain of communication

The WMO's (World Meteorological Organisation) global cyclone observatory started feeding data to its regional outpost at the Indian Meteorological Department in New Delhi, which in turn triggered Bangaldesh's government to sound the alarm.

The message was relayed from New Delhi to the Bangladesh authorities in the capital Dhaka, who passed it on to the local Red Crescent office.

From there, to get the message out to the 15 of Bangladesh's 64 districts which were affected, a network of 40,000 Red Crescent volunteers, who had been trained specifically for this task, were mobilised.

National response

After the storm Bangladesh army deployed 18 Bangladesh Air Force helicopters to deliver supplies to the remotest areas, while five Bangladesh Navy ships were immediately dispatched with food, medicine, and relief supplies for migrant fishing communities living on and around hundreds of tiny islands, or shoals, along the coast which were hardest hit. Rescuers battled along roads that were washed out or blocked by wind-blown debris to try to get water and food to people stranded by flooding. Some employed the brute force of elephants to help in their efforts.

The Ministry of Food and Disaster Management allocated 4,000 metric tonnes of rice, 7,500 tents, 18,000 blankets, and 30 million Taka (£300,000) in relief grants. About 13,000 housing packages, consisting of iron sheets for roofing and family kits were prepared for immediate distribution. A special 350 million Taka (£3,500,000) fund for housing was established by 22 November 2007. At that time, 732 medical team were deployed to the affected areas.

In simplicity lies human ingenuity

A simple early warning system that used local volunteers shouting through megaphones to warn people about the impending cyclone saved thousands of lives when Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh last week, and the system proved so effective that it might even become a model for other countries.

They cycled around the country, using megaphones to order residents into the 1,800 cyclone shelters and 440 flood shelters. By the time Sidr slammed into the coast on 15 November, around two million people were already sheltered.

It's as low tech as you get. It's basically a project centred around preparing people for disasters by using community based volunteers who do everything from street theatre to school education and lectures to women's groups.

They set up a committee with groups for warning, first aid, shelter, and relief. When early warnings are passed on they cycle around alerting people, even shouting through megaphones. The only hi-tech bit is the radios by which the headquarters in Dhaka passes the message to the zone offices and the unit level.

Bhupinder Tomar, senior disaster preparedness officer at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva

International solidarity at the time of crisis

Key figures