THE death toll from Cyclone Sidr that devastated the coast south of Bangladesh last week may reach 8,000, government officials warned yesterday.

More than 1,700 people have been confirmed dead but officials and aid workers expect the final toll to be many times higher. “We are expecting that thousands of dead bodies may be found within a few days,” Shekhar Chandra Das, deputy head of the government’s disaster management office, said yesterday.

“We have not been able to collect information about casualties in many remote and impassable places due to the disruption to communications.”

The cyclone generated waves up to 22ft high that surged up to 30 miles inland in some lowlying parts. Aid donations and support teams were pouring into Dhaka, the capital, last night as officials counted the cost in human lives and damage to property and crops.

More than 1.7m houses were swept away, leaving at least 3m people homeless, but 1.5m people left before the cyclone struck and are now living in temporary government shelters.

Yesterday the army sent a six-helicopter team to survey the destruction. They reported countless bodies and cattle floating in the flood water.

Aid workers said the country desperately needed dried food and urgent medical assistance to forestall the spread of disease.

The army said the biggest obstacles to rescue were thousands of trees that were ripped up and strewn across the major roads. Aid will have to be delivered by boat.

Ishtiaque Ahmed, who works for a Bangladeshi aid organisation, said his group was working with Swiss charities to bring assistance to 85,000 families in the southern cities of Barisal and Khulna. “There are at least 1.7m people sleeping under the sky. They have no food or safe water to drink,” he said last night.

Vast areas of farmland are under salt water so it will be several months before farmers can begin working their fields again. The storm struck just days before the harvest.

For more information and to donate to the appeal go to the following websites:

The International Federation of the Red Cross and and read their emergency appeal report

Bangladesh Cyclone Appeal; ph 0800 088 088

Save the Children

Christian Aid

British Red Cross

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