DHAKA: At least 14 people were killed and an estimated 1,500 fishermen are missing after tropical storms smashed into Bangladesh’s southern coastal islands and districts early yesterday, police said.
Police said at least 1,500 mud, tin and straw-built houses were also levelled in the storms that swept Bhola, Hatiya and Sandwip Islands and half a dozen coastal districts after midnight Wednesday.
At the worst-hit island of Hatiya, at least five people were killed after they were buried under their houses or hit by fallen trees, said local police chief Moktar Hossain.
“More than 100 fishing trawlers, each carrying at least 10 fishermen, have been missing since the storm,” he said, calling it one of the most powerful in decades.
Many fishermen are expected to have taken shelter in other remote islands in the Bay of Bengal or in the neighbouring Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest.
Two climbers missing after Nepal avalanche
KATHMANDU: Two mountaineers from Uzbekistan have gone missing after they were hit by an avalanche while trying to scale the 8,091-metre (26,550-feet) Annapurna mountain in Nepal, officials said yesterday.
Experienced Uzbek climber Ilyas Tukhvatullin, 54, and his climbing partner Ivan Lobanov, 51, were swept away on Monday evening and have not been found.
“They were at camp two at around 6,500 metres and their colleagues informed the base camp after they were hit by an avalanche,” Tilak Pandey, an officer at the country’s tourism ministry, said.AFP
