Bangladesh baby born during storm named after cyclone

DHAKA: A baby boy who was born in a Bangladeshi storm shelter was named after an impending cyclone, an official said yesterday.
Village elders named the youngster Mahasen after he was born early on Thursday morning at a shelter in the Patuakhali coastal district, only hours before the eponymous cyclone slammed into the seafront.
“Jyuotsna Begum gave birth to the boy at Boalia Union Council cyclone shelter and villagers who were in the shelter named him Mahasen,” said Mahmud Alam, the government administrator for the area. “Our health workers later attended to her and both the boy and the mother are doing fine.”
Alam told AFP that he had sent some new clothing and 2,000 taka ($ 25) yesterday to the boy’s father Forkan Mridha after he learnt that the cyclone had partly damaged his tin and mud-built house.
Cyclone Mahasen hit the Patuakhali coast at 9 a.m. local time Thursday with a maximum wind speed of 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour, but it lost much of its punch just after making landfall.
The government said tens of thousands of flimsy mud and tin-built houses were damaged or flattened during the cyclone.