People queuing up for transport amid the inclement weather at Gulshan Circle 2 in Dhaka on Saturday — FE photo FE REPORT
Around 50,000 people were evacuated to safer places including cyclone shelters in Chattogram on Saturday as the cyclonic storm 'Bulbul' was heading towards the coastal areas of Bangladesh.
Sources said the district administration opened a control room to monitor the overall situation. Besides, the administration formed medical teams to provide emergency services.
Mohammed Ilias Hossain, Deputy Commissioner of Chattogram, said, "We are ready to minimise losses of lives and property if the cyclonic storm hits the country."
He further said they had already sent relief materials to upazilas in the coastal areas.
Abu Shahed Chowdhury, Secretary of the Chattogram City Corporation, said they sent vehicles and volunteers to the coastal areas of the city including Patenga and Halishahar to evacuate the people to safer places.
"We have already shifted around 50 thousand people from the coastal areas to cyclone shelters today (Saturday) and formed 41 medical teams to provide emergency healthcare services."
Bangladesh Red Crescent Society also took all-out measures and deployed volunteers in the coastal areas of Chattogram and Cox's Bazar districts.
Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) suspended all sort of operational activities at the Chattogram Shah Amanat International Airport from 4:00 pm on Saturday until 6:00 am Sunday to avert any damage due to the Cyclone Bulbul.
Besides, the CAAB also stopped domestic flights to Barisal and Cox's Bazar from Saturday evening.
"We have decided to suspend all operations of Shah Amanat International Airport from 4:00 pm today (Saturday) to 6 am tomorrow due to the storm. But all kinds of activities of other airports in the country will continue till further notice," CAAB Member (Operations and Planning) Air Commodore Khalid Hossain said.
The government suspended the Junior School Certificate (JSC) and Junior Dakhil Certificate (JDC) exams of November 11 due to Cyclone Bulbul.
The new dates for the exams will be announced later, said the education ministry's spokesman Abul Khair. It follows the postponement of Saturday's JSC and JDC math exams which were rescheduled for November 12 and November 14, respectively.
At least 12,000 tourists were stranded in the beach town of Cox's Bazar and Saint Martin's Island as they could not leave residential hotels due to the inclement weather.
Of them, 1200 tourists were stuck at the Saint Martin's as the authoroities had halted movement of passenger ships to and from the island.
According to sources, at least 10,800 tourists could not leave Cox's Bazar town since Saturday morning due to lack of an adequate number of buses bound for Dhaka, Cumilla, Chattogram, Rajshahi, Rangpur and other districts.
Some tourists said they could not get buses for their destinations on Saturday.
General Secretary of Cox's Bazar Residential Hotel and Guest House Association Abul Kashem Sikder told FE that most of the tourists returned home in the morning of Saturday. But nearly 10,800 tourists could not leave Cox's Bazar town because of the inclement weather, shortage of buses.
On the other hand, about 1,200 tourists, stuck at Saint Martin's since Thursday, were safe.
UNO of Teknaf Saiful Islam said that upazila administration and Saint Martin's Union Council men were looking after the tourists.
After the inclement weather was over tourists would return to their destination safely, the UNO expected.
"We have taken measures for stuck tourists here and reduced 50 per cent room fare and 30 per cent food rate in the restaurants of the Island", Nurul Haq, UP chairman of Saint Martin's said.
All flights to and from Cox's Bazar, Dhaka and Chattogram were cancelled.
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