Bangladesh and Eastern India were on high alert Thursday as forecasters warned Tropical Cyclone Sidr could slam into the impoverished region's heavily populated southern coast within the next 24 hours.
Sidr, currently a Category 4 storm, is on a "really similar track" as Cyclone Bhola, a storm that devastated the region in 1970, CBC meteorologist Nick Czernkovich said.
Bhola, which made landfall as a Category 3 cyclone, was the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded, resulting in the deaths of more than 500,000 people.
The storm was likely to weaken slightly mid-Thursday before making landfall and threatening the Ganges Delta, home to nearly 150 million people, Czernkovich said.
Sidr could bring storm surges of up to five metres to an area already at or below sea level that has long been the target of flooding, he added.
"It's not the winds; it's the storm surge that causes the most damage," Czernkovich said. "Given that there is low-lying land, that makes it even worse."
On Wednesday, volunteers went village to village along Bangladesh's southern coast with megaphones to alert thousands of people to the approaching storm. The government warned ships to seek shelter as the cyclone roared offshore in the Bay of Bengal.
The Bangladesh Meteorological Department issued a bulletin putting the low-lying country's three major maritime ports — Chittagong, Mongla and Cox's Bazar — on the highest alert.
As of 7 p.m. ET Wednesday, the cyclone was about 650 kilometres south of Calcutta, India, with winds of around 185 km/h, according to the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
Authorities suspended operations at the country's main seaport, Chittagong, while volunteers helped thousands of people move to cyclone shelters and other safer areas along the southern coast, state-run Bangladesh Television said.
Bangladesh, a South Asian nation crisscrossed by river deltas, routinely suffers large-scale loss of life and property from cyclones and floods.
With files from the Associated PressRelated
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