Cyclone hits Bangladesh

Appeal for prayers and support

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ! 

According to news sources more than 10,000 people are dead and millions homeless and hungry in cyclone-hit Bangladesh, while army and aid workers are battling to reach the devastated coast. Many are still awaiting basic humanitarian assistance and aid in the country.

The chairman

Ecumenical News from UCAN

BANGLADESH Church Rushes Emergency Aid To Victims Of Deadly Cyclone 

DHAKA (UCAN) -- Catholic and Protestant organizations in Bangladesh have joined efforts to help people affected by the worst storm to hit the country in more than a decade. Caritas Bangladesh and World Vision Bangladesh are packaging food parcels and blankets for people displaced by Cyclone Sidr, which struck the country on the evening of Nov. 15 with winds of close to 250 kilometers an hour. Unofficial estimates of the death toll as of Nov. 19 exceeded 3,000.

Victims have been mostly poor farmers, fishermen and daily laborers along the southern seacoast of this Muslim-majority country of 140 million. According to media reports, government officials fear the ultimate death toll could rise to 10,000. Caritas Bangladesh began sending food parcels of rice, lentils, salt and oil on Nov. 19 to an estimated 18,950 families, with clothing and blankets to follow.

Alo Benedict D'Rozario, executive director of Caritas, the local Catholic Church's relief and development organization, said it plans to provide temporary housing for some of the victims. "The loss of housing, winter vegetables and trees is huge in the affected area," said D'Rozario, who visited Mongla sub-district on Nov. 18. Many roads were blocked by trees and debris. Caritas field worker Ananda Das has been coordinating the situational assessment in that seaport area south of Dhaka. "The most urgent need is food and medical care," Das told UCA News 

World Vision Bangladesh (WVB), the country unit of an international Christian humanitarian organization, plans to provide seven-day food packs and emergency supplies to 20,000 families. They are also providing first aid to those hurt by falling trees or collapsed houses.

Tutul Hira, a staff member of World Vision in Mongla, said children and many other people need counseling after being "traumatized in many ways" by Sidr. Before the cyclone struck, Caritas and World Vision personnel joined other NGO staff and local government officials in issuing storm warnings through the use of bullhorns and then moving people to cyclone shelters.

These shelters are typically concrete two-story buildings in which people can take refuge on the second floor. Caritas built more than 220 of these shelters between 1985 and 1998. In total, some 600,000 people in the southern coastal area were evacuated, according to the NGOs.

Father Mrityunjoy Dafadar, parish priest of coastal Shelabunia Catholic parish, said he was hoping the Church and local government would soon bring help to the survivors. Father Dafadar spoke with UCA News by telephone from his parish on Nov. 16, the day after the cyclone. "Thirty cyclone shelters are full with thousands of people and hence contagious diseases may spread," he said, warning that people will need medical attention. The priest said housing is a must. "Most of the poor people have lost their houses, either partially or entirely," he said.

More than 20,000 people took shelter in 31 World Vision-built cyclone shelters and schools that were designed to double as refuges in Mongla and Laudobe, another southern seaport area. The NGO will focus on housing and agricultural rehabilitation soon after the immediate relief response. Fifty-year-old school headmaster Sarder Jalal Uddion of Joymoni village, near the country's largest mangrove forest, told UCA News by telephone that his schoolhouse and Caritas Bangladesh-built cyclone shelter help protect some 2,000 people in the village. According to him, a significant feature of this storm was that it did not send a tidal surge like the cyclone of April 1991, which killed about 143,000 people. In 1970, the country's deadliest cyclone killed around 500,000.

VATICAN Pope Appeals For Help For People Hit By Cyclone In Bangladesh

By Gerard O'Connell, Special Correspondent in Rome. 

VATICAN CITY (UCAN) -- Pope Benedict XVI has extended his condolences to "the families of the victims" and "to the entire nation" of Bangladesh in the wake of Cyclone Sidr, and has asked the international community to make every effort to assist them. "In recent days a tremendous cyclone hit southern Bangladesh, causing very many victims and serious destruction," the 80-year-old pope told thousands of pilgrims gathered in St Peter's Square on Sunday, 18 November, to hear his words and receive his blessing.

Speaking from his study window in the Apostolic Palace after the midday Angelus, he expressed his "most profound sympathy to the families (of the victims) and to the entire nation which is so dear to me. "Bangladesh, with a population of 147 million people, is classified by the United Nations as one of the world's 49 poorest countries, with a 70 percent illiteracy rate and per-capita annual income of US$170.The great majority of the population, 85 percent, are Muslims, and another 11 percent Hindus. Buddhists account for about 2 percent and Christians less than 1 percent of the population.

Sidr struck the country on the evening of Nov. 15 with winds of 220-240kilometers an hour, according to Caritas Bangladesh, the local Church's relief and development agency. On Nov. 18, Caritas was reporting almost 2,000 people confirmed dead, unofficial estimates exceeding 3,000 and thousands more missing. That same day, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies estimated that almost 850,000 families totaling 2.7 million people had been affected. It reported 500,000 houses in 25 districts had been destroyed and more than 270,000 more damaged.

Pope Benedict said: "I appeal to international solidarity, which has already moved to respond to the immediate necessities, and I encourage it to activate every possible effort to help these brothers and sisters who have been so hard hit." Caritas regional offices in Barisal, Chittagong and Khulna have been procuring essential food items, organizing transport and drawing up beneficiary lists, according to the Caritas Bangladesh website.

An update posted on Nov. 18 listed pledges totaling US$1.15 million from other Caritas organizations in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United states as well as from the German government. The Italian Church's Caritas organization has announced it is collecting money to help the people in distress. The European Union has allotted 1.6million euros (about US$2.3 million) to help the humanitarian operation, according to reports, while the Italian and other individual governments said they would also contribute humanitarian aid. 

Thousands of migrants from Bangladesh work in Italy and send home their earnings. Bangladesh and the Holy See established diplomatic relations in 1972, and Pope John Paul II visited the country in 1986.

19 November, 2007