At least 16 people died as Cyclone Sitrang hit southern Bangladesh where one million people have been evacuated from low-lying areas, authorities said Tuesday.

Fourteen people died, most of them victims of fallen trees, and two others in the sinking of a boat on the Jamuna river, in the north of the country, government official Jebun Nahar told AFP.

“We haven’t received all the damage reports” from the typhoon, he said.

Sitrang hit the southern island of Bhola at 21:00 Monday (1500 GMT) before weakening on Tuesday morning and moving towards India’s northeastern state of Meghalaya, Bazlur Rashid, a meteorological official, told AFP.

Meteorological officials fear the typhoon could cause storm surges as high as three meters. However, this risk did not materialize.

– School closed –

In the hardest-hit Barisal region, heavy rains and strong winds have destroyed many vegetable crops, district administrator Aminul Ahsan told AFP.

Schools have been closed in the south and southwest of the country.

Trees were uprooted even in the capital Dhaka, yet located hundreds of kilometers from the storm.

As of Monday, “about a million people” from the lowlands, islands and riverbank areas had been evacuated and settled in thousands of shelters in the apartment buildings where they were staying, the agency told AFP the secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management, Kamrul Ahsan. .

And by Tuesday morning, many were returning home, he added.

Authorities say they sometimes have to persuade reluctant villagers to leave their homes.

– 10 million people without electricity –

About 10 million people have lost power in the country’s 15 coastal districts since Monday, an electricity division official said.

On Maheshkhali island, in southern Bangladesh, the typhoon uprooted many trees and also caused power and telecommunications blackouts.

“The wind was so strong that we couldn’t sleep last night for fear that our house would be destroyed,” said Tahmidul Islam, 25, a resident of Maheshkhali, Tuesday.

“Snakes enter many houses”, many were flooded, added the young man.

Some 33,000 Rohingya refugees on the hurricane-prone island of Bhashan Char in the Bay of Bengal have been ordered not to leave and no casualties or damage have been reported there, authorities said.

Bangladesh, a country of about 170 million people, is among the countries most affected by extreme weather events since the start of this century, according to the United Nations.

In India’s West Bengal state, thousands of people were evacuated to about 100 aid centers on Monday, officials said, adding that no damage was reported and people were returning home on Tuesday.

Global warming is likely to make typhoons more intense and frequent in South Asian countries bordering the Bay of Bengal, scientists say, but evacuation procedures have also improved greatly thanks to more precise forecasts.

Last year, more than a million people were evacuated along India’s east coast before Cyclone Yaas hit the region with gusts of 155 km/h, the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane.

In 2020, Cyclone Amphan, the second “super typhoon” ever recorded in the Bay of Bengal, caused more than 100 deaths in Bangladesh and India and several million casualties.