DHAKA (Reuters) - Four days after super cyclone Sidr killed more than 2,400 people in Bangladesh, rescuers were struggling to reach isolated areas along the country's devastated coast and give aid to millions of survivors.
"The tragedy unfolds as we walk through one after another devastated village," said relief operator Mohammad Selim in Bagerhat, one of the worst-hit areas. "Often it looks like we are in a valley of death."
Media reports and the chairman of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, Mohammad Abdur Rob, said the death toll had already surpassed 3,000, and was likely to go up. The government put the official toll at 2,471 confirmed dead.
"We are trying to reach all the affected areas on the vast coastline as soon as possible, when we will know how many people have exactly died in the devastation," one government official said.
While it will take several days to determine the number of dead and missing, some 3 million survivors who were either evacuated from the low-lying southern coast or whose homes and villages were destroyed will need support, the government said.
Aid workers fear inadequate supplies of food, drinking water and medicine could lead to outbreaks of disease.
Grieving families begged for clothes to wrap around the bodies of dead relatives for burial. In some areas, they put corpses in mass graves.
Reuters reporters in the affected districts said bodies were being discovered by the hour in the rivers and paddy fields and under piles of debris.
NO PROPER FUNERAL
Cyclone Sidr smashed into the coast of southern Bangladesh late on Thursday with 250 kph (155 mph) winds that whipped up a five-metre (16-foot) tidal surge.
In its wake, dead people and animals floated down rivers and the stench of death filled the air. Relatives tried to identify and bring them ashore, before burying them hurriedly without proper ceremonies.
Military ships and helicopters were trying to reach thousands of people believed stranded on islands in the Bay of Bengal and in coastal areas still cut off by the devastating storm.
Officials in affected areas say the death toll given by the ministry is far below the real numbers. Aid agencies have said the toll could rise beyond 10,000.
"Some 2,000 people have died in my area alone," said Anwar Panchayet in Bagerhat district. A huge effort was under way to get food, drinking water and shelter to the millions affected by the storm, the worst to hit disaster-prone Bangladesh since 1991 when nearly 143,000 people died in a cyclone and the tidal surge it triggered.
A much improved disaster preparedness plan, including storm shelters built all along the coastline since the 1991 storm, has been credited with saving hundreds of lives.
"The extent of destruction is unimaginable," Reuters cameraman Rafiqur Rahman reported by telephone from a coastal village.
