COLOMBO: Thousands took to relief camps in Sri Lanka and southern India on Saturday to escape rising floodwaters after a cyclone killed at least 26 people.
Cyclone Ockhi has left 13 people dead in Sri Lanka and killed an equal number in India’s Kerala and Tamil Nadu states since Friday as it churns in the Arabian Sea.
Eleven people, mostly fishermen, remained missing in the two countries as nearly 9,000 people sought shelter in relief camps.
Scores of localities suffered flooding and cut power and telephone lines as winds of up to 130 kilometers per hour swept the region.
Weather experts warned of more heavy rains to come, as the water level rose in several rivers in southern India.
The tiny Indian island of Lakshadweep off the country’s western coast braced for winds of 145 kilometers per hour.
The Sri Lankan disaster management center said 77,000 people in 16 districts have been affected, with the highest number in the southern Galle district.
Nearly 4,000 people are in Sri Lankan relief camps amid widespread destruction of property.
Authorities are on red alert in coastal areas, with five deaths already reported in Kanyakumari on the southern tip of India.
Schools and colleges in parts of India’s southern states have been shut as authorities try to restore nearly 4,000 snapped power lines.
The Kerala state emergency department said nearly 3,200 people were in relief camps. “Seven people died in several incidents and 218 were rescued from the sea,” an agency official said.
Weather officials said the storm was likely to move north into Tamil Nadu and the east coast state of Andhra Pradesh in the next four days.
India’s eastern coast — including major cities like Chennai and Bhubaneswar — are prone to storms that wreak immense damage between April and December.
In 1999, more than 8,000 people were killed when a cyclone battered the eastern state of Orissa.
While Cyclone Ockhi was said to be weakening, another tropical storm was brewing in the Bay of Bengal on the east coast, officials said.
Cyclone batters southwestern India coast killing 14, many missing
Cyclone batters southwestern India coast killing 14, many missing
Bangladesh’s religio-political party open to unity govt
- Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years
DHAKA: A once-banned Bangladeshi religio-political party, poised for its strongest electoral showing in February’s parliamentary vote, is open to joining a unity government and has held talks with several parties, its chief said.
Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years as it marks a return to mainstream politics in the predominantly Muslim nation of 175 million.
Jamaat last held power between 2001 and 2006 as a junior coalition partner with the BNP and is open to working with it again.
“We want to see a stable nation for at least five years. If the parties come together, we’ll run the government together,” Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman said in an interview at his office in a residential area in Dhaka, days after the party created a buzz by securing a tie-up with a Gen-Z party.
Rahman said anti-corruption must be a shared agenda for any unity government.
The prime minister will come from the party winning the most seats in the Feb. 12 election, he added. If Jamaat wins the most seats, the party will decide whether he himself would be a candidate, Rahman said.
The party’s resurgence follows the ousting of long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a youth-led uprising in August 2024.
Rahman said Hasina’s continued stay in India after fleeing Dhaka was a concern, as ties between the two countries have hit their lowest point in decades since her downfall.
Asked about Jamaat’s historical closeness to Pakistan, Rahman said: “We maintain relations in a balanced way with all.”
He said any government that includes Jamaat would “not feel comfortable” with President Mohammed Shahabuddin, who was elected unopposed with the Awami League’s backing in 2023.
