Disaster in the Delta

In the Ganges delta 200 miles east of Calcutta, there is so much more water than land that people wade or swim instead of walk, and boys paddle to school in big round earthenware pots called pipkins, with their books tucked under their folded legs. The delta's inhabitants have learned to live with such hazards as high spring tides and violent cyclones that sweep in over the Bay of Bengal at the turn of the monsoon in the fall. But this month uncounted thousands of them died in the worst storm since October 1876, when 100,000 drowned in 30 minutes.

For six hours winds that reached 80 m.p.h. smashed homes and communications in an area inhabited by 300,000 people. At Noakhali (pop. 20,000), the railway station was destroyed, and the bazaar just blew away. In the countryside between Noakhali and Chittagong, whole villages were engulfed. Worse was in store.

Following the great wind, says a survivor, came "waves as big as mountains, roaring like a thousand thunderclaps." Huts were washed away "like weeds." In a pathetic attempt to keep from being swept away, people clasped hands to form circles, with their children in the middle. There were few trees to climb to precarious safety; most trees had long ago been chopped by villagers for fuel.

The storm smashed telephone and telegraph lines so thoroughly that it was five days before the news reached Dacca, less than 100 miles away. Even so, the first government official to visit the area reported "four boys washed away," and called other casualty figures "grossly exaggerated." But last week, eleven days after the storm struck, the estimate was that the total would be "unimaginably higher'' than the 5,000 dead reported on Ramgati and Hatia alone. Getting out of his Jeep to inspect some still-standing huts in the stricken region, East Pakistan Governor Lieut. General Azam Khan observed: "People must give up living in those places."

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