Bhola 1970 remains the deadliest tropical cyclone recorded
The Bhola cyclone of November 1970 is the deadliest tropical cyclone on record and among history’s worst natural disasters. Formed over the Bay of Bengal on 8 November, it peaked near 185 km/h winds before annihilating coastal East Pakistan—today’s Bangladesh.
The storm grew from leftovers of Tropical Storm Nora, which had crossed the South China Sea and the Malay Peninsula before seeding a depression in the central Bay of Bengal. Nobody in the region named cyclones then, so it went unnamed. It stalled, then raced north, developing a clear eye with one-minute winds of about 240 km/h and a central pressure of 960 hPa. Landfall on the evening of 12 November coincided with high tide, driving a surge of around 10 metres into the Ganges Delta. At Chittagong the anemometer blew away after registering 144 km/h, and a ship in port logged a 222 km/h gust.
At least 300,000 people died, possibly half a million, mostly drowned. In Tazumuddin upazila more than 45 percent of 167,000 residents were killed, and Radio Pakistan reported no survivors on thirteen islands near Chittagong. Some 3.6 million people were directly affected, about 85 percent of homes were ruined, and 46,000 of 77,000 onshore fishermen died, wiping out roughly 65 percent of the coast's fishing capacity in an area that got 80 percent of its protein from fish. Three months on, three-quarters of the population depended on relief food, while cholera and typhoid slowed medical aid.
Warnings failed badly. After cyclones in October 1960, Pakistan had asked the United States for help, and Gordon Dunn of the National Hurricane Center delivered a report in 1961, but not all his advice was adopted. Radio Pakistan broadcast a great danger signal that survivors later said meant little; they understood a No. 1 signal as the top threat. Tension with India may also have kept Indian forecasts from reaching Dacca.
The political fallout was enormous. Anger at West Pakistan's slow, discriminatory relief helped the Awami League sweep the province in elections a month later, and the Bangladesh Liberation War began seven months after that.
Source: 1970 Bhola cyclone
