- Title: BANGLADESH: AFTERMATH OF TORNADO WHICH KILLED AT LEAST FIVE HUNDRED PEOPLE.
- Date: 22nd April 1973
- Summary: 1. GV PAN's and SCU Devastated area with uprooted trees. (3 shots) 0.14 2. SV Young child sleeping in hut. 0.16 3. SV Old man with injured head. 0.18 4. SV Child crying and child playing in mud. (2 shots) 0.22 5. SV Man working PAN TO other villagers. 0.27 6. SV Woman cradling child. 0.29 7. SV People walking through hut. 0.34 8. SCU and SV's Wreckage. (4 shots) 0.43 9. SV Woman with earthen pot. 0.45 10. SV's bodies at water's edge. (2 shots) 0.48 11. SV Vulture and crow standing on skeleton 0.51 12. SV Vulture on animal erase and flies away. 0.53 13. SV Vultures eating human body. 0.54 14. SV People burying body (3 shots) 1.14 15. SV Man comforting woman and old lady crouching. (2 shots) 1.22 16. SV TILT DOWN PAN along wrecked house. 1.28 17. SV PAN from cattle eating to wrecked houses. 1.26 18. SV Salvaged belonging near wrecked home (2 shots) 1.56 19. SV Villagers PAN TO wrecked huts. (2 shots) 2.00 DEVASTATED AREA: WRECKED HOUSES: BODIES AT WATERS EDGE: VULTURES EATING DEAD BODIES: BODIES BURIED: MOURNING RELATIVES: CATTLE CARCASSES. Initials GD/VS/ 23.15 GD/VS 23.43 EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: SOME OF THE SCENES IN THIS FILM SHOW EXPLICITLY SCENES WHICH MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SOME VIEWERS. PLEASE EDIT ACCORDING TO LOCAL SENSIBILITIES. Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 7th May 1973 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: MANIKGANJ, BANGLADESH
- Country: Bangladesh
- Reuters ID: LVABMYI8CDJ6IXNJDP0QAR4WKPB6
- Story Text: At least five hundred people died in a tornado which ripped through the Manikganj area of Bangladesh on Thursday (April 19). More bodies are expected to be revealed when flood waters recede. Some estimates put the death toll as high as a thousand.
Government and international agencies have mounted a major relief operation to get food, medicine, clothing and building materials to the disaster area which is west of Dacca. Villages along the River Kalinganga were the worst hit areas. Of the thousands of thatched houses, few survived and many boats sunk carrying an unknown number of passengers.
Damage to crops and livestock was described as "colossal" by the Bangladesh relief minister, Mizanur Rahman choudhury. Hardest hit have been cash crops like betelnut, coconut, bananas, mangos and jute.
Bangladesh duffers annually from cyclones, tornadoes and tidal waves which sweep in form the Bay of Bengal into offshore islands and coastal areas of the Ganges Delta. Less than three years ago, a cyclone and tidal-wave left a confirmed death toll of a quarter of a million, one of the worst catastrophes in the modern world .
SYNOPSIS: The tornado which ripped through central Bangladesh on Thursday left a known death toll of five hundred...but some estimates put the total close to a thousand.
Thousands have been left homeless in villages along the banks of the River Kalinganga in the Manikganj region west of Dacca. Barely a thatched house was left standing in the densely populated region.
Government and international agencies have mounted a major relief operation to get food, medicine, clothing and building materials into the disaster area. Very little was left intact by the winds which reached a hundred miles an hour.
As the flood waters recede, more bodies are left exposed to the elements...and the vultures.
Many bodies are daily dug out from under piles of rubble ad the relief operation continues. Bangladesh suffers annually from cyclones, tidal-waves and tornadoes which sweep across the Bay of Bengal into off shore islands and coastal areas of the Ganges Delta. Only a week before, at least a hundred were killed in a cyclone in the district of Faridpur.
Homeless villagers have been assured that everything possible to being done to help them.
Government officials have described the loss of livestock and crops as colossal. Hardest hit have been cash crops such as betelnut, coconut, bananas, mangos and jute.
Although they are homeless, the farmers are now hoping for the monsoon rains so the land will soon be ready for new crops.
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