Nearly 400 Found Alive in South Asia Storm
Date: 23-Sep-05
Country: INDIA
But there were still scores missing, and survivors in neighbouring Bangladesh, which was also hit by the storm in the Bay of Bengal on Monday, spoke of bodies floating in the sea.
At least 66 people have been killed so far, authorities in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh said, after the storm brought heavy rains, strong winds and flooding in the coastal villages.
An Andhra Pradesh government official said flood waters had since receded, allowing rescuers to reach the remote villages. "We have been able to move into villages and rescue people listed as missing," state official Navin Mittal said.
But a fisherman who survived the storm in low-lying Bangladesh said many others were not so lucky.
"I was lucky to come back. While returning to shore I saw several wrecked boats and bodies floating on the rough sea," Idris Ali told reporters late on Wednesday in Barguna, a coastal district about 250 km (156 miles) south of the capital, Dhaka.
"But we are not sure how many have died."
Storms and cyclones that form in the Bay of Bengal in September and October slam into India's eastern coast and neighbouring Bangladesh almost every year.
In 1977, around 10,000 people were killed when a cyclone lashed Andhra Pradesh. Nineteen years later, some 2,000 people were killed in another cyclone. In Bangladesh, a cyclone left 143,000 people dead in 1991.
(Additional reporting by Aroop Talukdar in BARGUNA)
