Cyclone death toll reported at 1,100

Aid workers struggled yesterday to help hundreds of thousands of survivors of a cyclone that blasted Bangladesh with 150 miles per hour winds, killing at least 1,100 people, savaging coastal towns, and leaving millions without power in the deadliest such storm in more than a decade.

Rescuers - some employing the brute strength of elephants - contended with roads that were washed out or blocked by wind-blown debris to try to get water and food to people stranded by flooding from Tropical Cyclone Sidr.

The damage to livelihood, housing, and crops from Sidr will be "extremely severe," said John Holmes, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, adding that the world body was making millions of dollars in aid available to Bangladesh.

The winds heavily damaged the country's electricity and telephone lines, affecting even areas that were spared a direct hit, and leaving the full picture of the death and destruction unclear.

By late yesterday, about 24 hours after the cyclone roared ashore, officials were still struggling to get reports from many of the worst-hit districts.

Dhaka, the capital city of this poor, desperately crowded nation of 150 million people, remained without power. Winds uprooted trees and sent billboards flying through the air, said Ashraful Zaman, an official at the main emergency control room.

The United News of Bangladesh news agency, which has reporters deployed across the disaster zone, said a count by rescue workers from each affected district left an overall death toll of at least 1,100.

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