Storm lashes Bangladesh

At least 38 people were killed and 700 injured in a violent tropical storm that whipped through northern Bangladesh on Sunday night.

Officials said the storm, packing winds of 90 kph, tore through several villages in the districts of Gaibandha and Rangpur, flattening hundreds of houses, uprooting trees and electric poles and damaging crops.

"The storm also turned nearly 10,000 people homeless," said an official at Gaibandha town, about 300 kilometres from the capital, Dhaka.

"The storm has left a trail of destruction and we are carrying relief to the affected people," he added.

Rural homes, mostly made of bamboo, straw and corrugated iron sheets, could not withstand the rain and wind.

Officials and witnesses said some 400 people were treated in Gaibandha and Rangpur hospitals.

Yesterday, wailing survivors were seen recovering bodies of relatives from under heaps of debris or collapsed houses while rescuers struggled to clear roads blocked by fallen trees.

"Oh Allah, kill me as well," cried a woman in the village of Kupipara, in Gaibandha district, whose husband had died.

Most of the storm-swept areas were without electricity. The storm battered more than 10 villages in an area with a population of about 50,000, officials and police said.