DHAKA/GOLSHAKHALI, 21 November 2007 — A false tsunami alert two months ago led thousands of Bangladeshis to ignore warnings as cyclone Sidr approached, costing many lives, villagers and officials said yesterday.
“This time we did not take the number 10 danger signal seriously because so often the government hoists these signals. We rush to the cyclone centers but find that there is no catastrophe,” said Abed Master, a teacher in Golshakhali, one of the worst-hit villages in southern Bangladesh. Officials said they had struggled to persuade villagers — used to the Bay of Bengal’s many lesser cyclones and storm — of the danger they faced.
“On Thursday, we used loudspeakers from the mosque to plead with them to rush to the cyclone centers, but hardly anyone responded,” said Anwar Hossain Khan, an ex-local government chairman in the village of Charkhali, where at least 120 people perished.
A massive earthquake off the coast of Sumatra prompted the Indonesian authorities to issue a tsunami alert on Sept. 13. Immediately, the Indian Ocean countries of Malaysia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka hoisted alerts.
The warning was later withdrawn after Indonesian authorities said there was no longer any danger.
In Bangladesh, however, the country’s cyclone alert network swung into action and quickly evacuated over a million people who spent the night in shelters or on high ground.
“The police, the government officials and the Red Crescent volunteers forced us to go to safe places although the river looked calm and quiet,” said Hafizur Rahman, who lost his son and a daughter in the cyclone.
“They told us that a giant wave was heading toward Bangladesh and would devour the coastal villages,” said Rahman, of Golshakhali, on the bank of the Bishkhali river, near the Bay of Bengal.
“I did not go to the shelter last Thursday when the cyclone came. By the time the wind began to blow away our houses, it was too late,” he said.
Red Crescent officials said September’s false alarm led many to stay at home despite repeated warnings.
“On Sept. 13, we evacuated some people from the most vulnerable villages. People also heard media stories about a tsunami and spontaneously headed to the shelters on their own,” said Shamsul Alam, the head of Red Crescent’s cyclone preparedness program in the coastal district of Barguna.
When Thursday’s warning went out far fewer people responded, he said, “although the danger was real and we had more than a day to warn people.” The southern district of Barguna was among the worst hit by the cyclone, which has killed nearly 3,500 people with the toll expected to rise.
Some 900 deaths have been reported in the district, although local officials put the toll at 1,200 with more than 2,000 still missing.
Meanwhile, urgently-needed supplies of food, water and medicine were yesterday nearing people in remote areas. With roads now cleared of hundreds of trees that had blocked aid convoys, officials said relief was finally starting to get through to the most inaccessible areas five days after the colossal storm hit.
“The scale of this disaster is enormous,” says Heather Blackwell, the Bangladesh head of the British aid group Oxfam.
“People here are resilient. However, the scale is such that it will take months for people to be able to return to their normal lives,” she said, adding it “could take weeks before we know exactly how bad this cyclone was.” The confirmed death toll stood at 3,447 but officials feared it could climb significantly after all the victims in isolated areas were accounted for.
The head of the Bangladeshi Red Crescent has said he believed up to 5,000 to 10,000 people had died.
Villagers in some of the country’s most remote areas along the coast — one of the poorest places on the planet — have seen their homes and livelihoods washed away by a huge tidal wave, and are without food or clean water.
