Storms leave 170 dead in Bangladesh, India

Storms that battered Bangladesh and eastern India have killed more than 170 people and left many missing, navy and coastguard officials said yesterday.

A new cyclone alert was also issued for early today in the Kutch region in the Indian state of Gujarat located on the western coast, and two ports - one in Mundra and one in Kandla - have been shut down.

Strong winds and heavy rain triggered by a storm last week have left around 375,000 people homeless in India and Bangladesh over the past four days.

Life across Bangladesh, especially in the capital Dhaka, remained largely paralysed with roads knee-deep high with water, witnesses said.

Most of the victims in the eastern coast of India and Bangladesh were fishermen caught in the storm last Tuesday night while fishing in the Bay of Bengal, government officials said.

They said more than a dozen navy vessels, other boats and helicopters launched a massive search and rescue operation off the Bangladesh coast yesterday, as hopes of finding the missing alive faded fast.

Authorities say that while many boats have managed to return to shore, the navy and coastguard are still looking for hundreds of fishermen who remain unaccounted for.

Also they were looking for a naval officer missing in the bay after his patrol boat ran aground on an island during Tuesday's storm. Other crews of the grounded boat had been recovered by helicopter.

Surviving fishermen said they were caught off guard as weather authorities had failed to warn them of the impending storm. Dhaka's weather office denied this, saying an alert was issued well in advance.

In the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, constant rain and flooding have killed around 30 people, and forced 350,000 living mainly in coastal areas from their homes.

In West Bengal's capital, Kolkata, police used boats on Friday to rescue hundreds of families stranded in low-lying slums.

The storms also killed more than 40 people and left nearly 15,000 homeless in Andhra Pradesh state on India's east coast.