Weekly Standard (India)

DACCA, Nov. 14 (Reuter, AP, UPI & UNI)

About 60,000 persons are feared to have been killed in the hurricane and tidal waves which hit the coastal areas and tiny off. shore islands of southern East Pakistan early yesterday morning.

First reports trickling in from the affected areas put the death toll at 25,000. Travellers from the south estimated 100,000 persons missing. A pilot who flew over the area after the killer cyclone had struck said that over a million people in an area of 10,000 square miles have been left homeless. In some areas there were no signs of life, he said.

Entire Islands have vanished into the sea in what the Government described as East Pakistan's worst calamity of the. century.

The magnitude of the disaster is not known. Normal communications have been blacked out since the 190-kph hurricane ripped across the delta area of East Pakistan.

Government launches, battling heavy seas, have left for the offshore islands. They have not returned till this evening.

Over half of the 120,000 people living in the Hatiya island were stated to be missing after the five-metre wave struck. the fate of 15,000 to 20,000 Hindu pilgrims who had gathered on Dubla island for a religious festival is still unknown. And in Bhola is¬land, where 10,00,000 people live, the thana area was "washed away".

Radio Pakistan said late tonight that over 5000 people were killed in Hatiya Island in Khulna district, 5,000 more were known to have perished in Chittagong district and another 1,000 in Bhola area in Barisal District. The radio said a "considerable number" of the pilgrims on Dubla Island had also been killed.

In Chittagong, 79 people were killed on Thursday night, while reports from the interior of the district are still awaited.

A pilot of the East Pakistan Flying Club who flew over the scene said he saw a big ship torn apart and a cargo ship grounded to the north east of the offshore islands.

An Indian ship, MV. Jagamitra put out an SOS call on Thursday night, but her fate was unknown.

A Mercantile Marine Department spokesman in Calcutta said the 5,000-tonne vessel, bound for Kuwait with 49 crew aboard was feared sunk. It had left Calcutta on Wednesday.

A correspondent of the Eastern News Agency visited the coastal zone and counted 350 floating bodies. Others were stuck in tree branches or lying in paddy fields. He reported after a partial survey of the coast, that scores of others were dying.

The correspondent said that 90 percent et the houses had been destroyed along the 480-km coastal belt between Noakhali and Chittagong. Thousands of cattle perished and there was heavy damage to paddy crops. Khulna and Barishal districts, 160 km. south-west of Dacca, were also affected by the cyclone.

Two officers of the Pakistan River Steamer Company, who flew over the devastated Bhola Island reported "there was hardly any
sign of life in the island's coastal belt and the entire island was under knee-deep water until Friday afternoon."

A pilot who flew over the islands of Barisal district reported that 75 per cent of the villages appeared to have been washed away.
Because of the lack of helicopters in East Pakistan, relief teams were forced to move by river, carrying food and medicines and other vitally needed supplies. President Yahya Khan flew into Dacca today from Peking at the end of his five-day official visit to China

Without making any statement on his Chinese visit. Gen Yahya Khan said he had instructed the Governor to speed up all relief measures.
Five times in the last decade East Pakistan has been hard hit by cyclones.

In October 1960, a cyclone claimed 15,000 dead in the regions of Chittagong, Noakhali, Barisal, Khulna, Jessore, Faridpur, Dacca and Hatia and Rumgati islands. The cyclone itself ravaged the interior of the country while tidal waves devastated the coastal region.

In May 1961, 1473 died and 1,473 were injured in a similar disaster.

Two years later, in May 1963 a 15-hour cyclone and a tidal wave devasted 150 km. of the coast of East Pakistan. A total of 11,942 people lost their lives and more than 100,000 were left homeless

Two other cyclones hit East Pakistan in 1955. The first in May caused 10,000 deaths and theother in December killed 18000.