Cyclone lashes Bangladesh killing nine, flooding low-lying areas

A cyclone roared into the Bangladesh coast on Tuesday, killing at least ninre people, destroying houses, uprooting trees and disrupting road, power and communication links, officials said.

Mass evacuations before Cyclone Sitrang made landfall on the west coast helped save lives but the full extent of the casualties and damage would only be known after communications are restored, they said.

The cyclone barrelled in from the Bay of Bengal early in the day with winds gusting up to 88 kph and a storm surge of about 3 m that flooded low-lying coastal areas.

Power and telephone links have been largely cut and coastal areas plunged into darkness, officials said.

Most of the people killed were crushed by falling trees.

No major damage was reported in refugee camps in southeast Bangladesh, where more than a million ethnic Rohingya refugees from neighbouring Myanmar are living in flimsy shelters.

Officials advised nearly 33,000 Rohingya refugees who have moved from the camps to a flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal to stay indoors.

Heavy rain fell on the streets of the capital, Dhaka, causing some flooding and disruption to commuters.

The cyclone also affected the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.