At least 22 people have been killed after a cyclone hit the coast of Bangladesh, officials say.
Trees and power poles were felled and water inundated low-lying areas after the depression-turned-cyclone called Sitrang hit overnight on Monday.
Most of the deaths were caused by falling trees and capsizing boats, according to local officials’ reports, Kamrun Nahar, an official at the Disaster Management Department’s control room, said.
“We are still assessing the damage,” she said, adding that her office was receiving reports of further devastation.
State Minister for Relief and Disaster Management Enamur Rahman said more than 10,000 thatched homes had been devastated in 13 coastal districts.
Crops on 6000 hectares of land were destroyed and nearly 1000 fisheries were washed away, the minister said after a preliminary assessment.
Nearly eight million out of a total of 48 million electricity users were left without power due to damaged distribution lines and electricity poles, Nasrul Hamid, state minister for power and energy, told reporters in Dhaka.
Power is likely to be restored completely by Wednesday, he said.
Three members of one family, including a four-year-old child, were killed when a tree fell on their house in Nangolkot in the Cumilla district, more than 100 kilometres southeast of Dhaka, local government official Rayhan Mehboob said.
Two people died when trees fell on them in the coastal district of Bhola, said Touhidul Islam, a district administration official.
Two more people died later in similar incidents.
He said the storm had devastated vast crop fields in the island district and many trees and electricity poles had fallen down.
Two people died after being hit by the falling branches of trees in the central districts of Munshiganj and Gopalganj.
A further two people died after trees hit their homes, one in southwestern district of Narail and the other in the southern Barguna district.
Another two people were electrocuted in the eastern district of Noakhali.
Meanwhile, a man died in Dhaka when a brick wall collapsed on him, while two people died after their small boat capsized in the Jamuna river in northwestern Sirajganj district, officials said.
Another man died after a fishing trawler capsized in the southern Patuakhali district.
Rescuers found the bodies of two children drifting in the water in the Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar districts.
Another man died after his home collapsed in the central district of Gazipur.
Eight workers employed on a dredger remain missing after the vessel sank off the coast of the Mirsarai sub-district of eastern Chattogram, a local official said.