Cyclone churns towards Bangladesh as storm toll reaches 201 in Sri Lanka

DHAKA/AGALAWATTE: An intensifying cyclone churned north towards Bangladesh on Monday after heavy rain in Sri Lanka and thunderstorms in eastern India killed almost 200 people, with more torrential downpours forecast.

Impoverished Bangladesh, hit by cyclones every year, warned that some low-lying coastal areas were “likely to be inundated by a storm surge of four to five feet (1.2 to 1.5 metres)” above normal and raised the storm danger signal, on a scale of one to 10, to seven. Cyclone Mora was expected to make landfall on Monday morning.

Floods and landslides in tropical Sri Lanka, off India’s southern tip, have killed at least 169 people in recent days, authorities said, with 24 killed in storms in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, either by lightning strikes or under collapsed village huts.

India warned of heavy rain in the northeastern states of Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh as Mora moved further up the Bay of Bengal.

Floods reached roof level and cut off access to many rural Sri Lankan villages, disrupting life for half a million people, many of them workers on rubber plantations, officials said.

Villagers in Agalawatte, in a key rubber-growing area 74 km southeast of the capital, Colombo, said they were losing hope of water levels falling soon after the heaviest rain since 2003. (Reuters)