Patuakhali, Bangladesh –
More than 115,000 Bangladeshis left their coastal villages on Sunday for concrete storm shelters further inland, as the low-lying country prepared for pounding waves when a cyclone makes landfall, officials said.
Cyclone Remal is set to hit the southern coast and parts of neighboring India on Sunday evening, with Bangladesh’s weather department forecasting gales and gusts of up to 80 miles per hour.
Cyclones have killed hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh in recent decades, but the number of superstorms hitting the densely populated coast has increased sharply – from one per year to as many as three – due to the effects of climate change.
