Govt urged to declare Nov 12 as National Coastal Awareness Day
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
The gloomy Nov 12 has come back to haunt the nation even 37 years after a cyclonic storm and tidal waves ravaged the southern coasts of the then East Pakistan in 1970, reports bdnews24.com.
Organisations working in the coastal areas have asked the government to declare November 12 as the National Coastal Awareness Day.
Organisations and communities in the coastal districts have organised commemorative meetings and special prayers in remembrance and salvation of the deceased.
Hundreds of thousands of lives and countless heads of cattle were lost to the enormous catastrophe.
The cyclone metamorphosed the coastal districts into a huge expanse of wasteland overnight, leaving the old-timers still alive to shiver at the mention of the day.
November 11 had dawned to drizzles due to a depression in the Bay. Influenced by a full moon, the seas intensified their heaving and sighing, whipping up high waves and rolling them across the coastal lands.
The waves had breached polders and higher grounds, striking panic into the very existence of the southern seafarers.
Around midnight, the seas swelled and rolled relentlessly towards the mainland; the tide was unusually high, the met office had said.
The tidal waves, 25-30 feet high, advanced and crushed on whatever impeded their paths-villages, standing fields of crops, cattle.
The devastating strength of the huge volumes of rushing waters destroyed everything.
Once the roilling waters receded, all that remained were corners of cropped fields, bare-branched trees, and a few buildings-all strewn with corpses of human beings of all ages, carcasses of animals, dead birds and wasted crops and fodder.
According to the Integrated Coastal Zone Management Planning (ICZMP) Project authorities, about 81,000 square kilometre area of the coasts was totally ravaged in the cyclone.
The government estimates said that 1,70,000 people died in what many say was the worst cyclone that swept over the region in the past hundred years.
The dead bodies were left to be consumed by vultures or mother Earth, as there was hardly anybody alive in the regions to take any initiative.
Organisations working in the coastal areas have asked the government to declare November 12 as the National Coastal Awareness Day.
Organisations and communities in the coastal districts have organised commemorative meetings and special prayers in remembrance and salvation of the deceased.
Hundreds of thousands of lives and countless heads of cattle were lost to the enormous catastrophe.
The cyclone metamorphosed the coastal districts into a huge expanse of wasteland overnight, leaving the old-timers still alive to shiver at the mention of the day.
November 11 had dawned to drizzles due to a depression in the Bay. Influenced by a full moon, the seas intensified their heaving and sighing, whipping up high waves and rolling them across the coastal lands.
The waves had breached polders and higher grounds, striking panic into the very existence of the southern seafarers.
Around midnight, the seas swelled and rolled relentlessly towards the mainland; the tide was unusually high, the met office had said.
The tidal waves, 25-30 feet high, advanced and crushed on whatever impeded their paths-villages, standing fields of crops, cattle.
The devastating strength of the huge volumes of rushing waters destroyed everything.
Once the roilling waters receded, all that remained were corners of cropped fields, bare-branched trees, and a few buildings-all strewn with corpses of human beings of all ages, carcasses of animals, dead birds and wasted crops and fodder.
According to the Integrated Coastal Zone Management Planning (ICZMP) Project authorities, about 81,000 square kilometre area of the coasts was totally ravaged in the cyclone.
The government estimates said that 1,70,000 people died in what many say was the worst cyclone that swept over the region in the past hundred years.
The dead bodies were left to be consumed by vultures or mother Earth, as there was hardly anybody alive in the regions to take any initiative.