What were the preparations for the Bangladesh cyclone?
The government’s actions before the cyclone have not been criticised. In fact, they have received near universal praise. People are homeless and many have not eaten for days It is their actions after the storm struck that have been called into question, in particular their failure to deliver aid quickly. At least three days before the storm struck, around 10m people were warned through newspaper adverts, megaphone announcements from mosques and on the internet – though given the number of people in this area who are illiterate, this last strategy may not have been so effective. In addition, successive Bangladeshi governments have embarked on a comprehensive cyclone shelter construction programme. There are now about 550 shelters on the southern coast and thousands of lives were saved because of them. Some people argue that a key reason why the number of people killed in the cyclone was not higher was because it struck when the tide in the Bay of Bengal was low. Had it been higher, the
