Cyclone crosses coast, leaves trail of damage
FE REPORT | Saturday, 18 November 2023
Cyclonic storm 'Midhili' crossed the bay coast in Patuakhali on Friday afternoon, leaving a trial of damage to crops and disruption to regular economic activities at ports and transportation.
Due to its impact, different parts of the country, especially coastal districts, witnessed heavy storms, and medium-to-heavy downpour.
Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) in its latest bulleting on Friday evening said, "Cyclone Midhili which was hovering over north-west bay, crossed the coastal belt at around 3.00pm. It became a lower depression over Patuakhali and neighbouring areas, also was expected to move towards north becoming weaker."
All seaports were advised to lower the warning signal to No. 3.0 from 7.0 earlier at Mongla and Payra seaports and 6.0 at Chattogram and Cox's Bazar.
Fishing boats, trawlers and other vessels were instructed to stay at safe zone until further notice.
The BMD and other government agencies earlier had said Midhili would not be a violent cyclone.
However, more than 25,000 people were evacuated to cyclone shelters in 16 coastal districts as well as over 900 medical teams were prepared.
According to media reports, more than 300 fishermen on 20 trawlers were missing till the filing of the report at around 7.00pm.
Also, around 200 tourists remained stranded on Saint Martin's island as the shipping services with Teknaf remained halted due to rough weather.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) suspended launch operation on all routes across the country to help avoid any mishap.
A visit to Dhaka River Port Terminal at Sadarghat in the capital in afternoon revealed that no launch was operating since morning.
A staff member of a Barishal-bound launch said some passengers had come to the terminal in the morning but they left seeing the launch services suspended.
An official at the river-port terminal said, "Launch operation will remain suspended until further notice."
FE Chattogram correspondent adds: The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) suspended loading and unloading activities of cargos at the seaport following instruction to raise danger signal-number 6 that was later reduced to signal no 3.
The deep depression over the northwest Bay of Bengal and adjoining areas moved north-northeastwards further and intensified into cyclonic storm "Midhili" over the same area on Friday.
CPA Chairman Rear Admiral Mohammad Sohail held an emergency meeting at noon where came the decision of keeping loading and unloading activities of cargoes suspended.
Leaves of all the employees and officials of the CPA were cancelled and the authorities declared the alert number 3.
CPA secretary Omar Faruk said, "The decision (of halting cargo handling) was taken after a meeting with all the stakeholders of the port."
"The honourable chairman has instructed that ship loading and unloading (the transfer of goods to and from ships to the jetty) be brought to a halt. We are now informing those concerned about the decision," he added.
The port authorities have instructed ships at the jetty to move into open anchorage.
Four ships have already left the harbour since high tide in the morning. However, the other ships remained at the jetty due to the onset of low tide.
The CPA secretary said, "We will continue our official work. An 'Alert-3' is issued when the warning signal rises above 5. We are acting accordingly."