Rescuers Search For Fishermen Lost In Cyclone

With the calming of cyclone-churned seas off the coast of Bangladesh, rescuers began searching Sunday for nearly 500 missing fishermen after the weekend storm that killed at least 51 people and left thousands injured, officials said.

Many fishermen could have taken shelter after hearing cyclone warnings, but they have yet to return home, the relief ministry officials said in Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital.

Reports of additional people killed came in Sunday, increasing the death toll from 35 to at least 51. The cyclone also killed at least 1,000 cattle and flattened thousands of straw-roofed homes, trees and electric poles on Bangladesh’s southeastern coast Saturday, the ministry said. Winds reached up to 90 mph.

Sunshine lifted some of the gloom Sunday. Hundreds of thousands of people who had been evacuated began returning to their homes, the ministry said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited the worst hit district of Bhola, an island about 65 miles south of Dhaka, where more than half of the deaths occurred.

Most people were killed when the mud walls of their huts collapsed under the impact of the rain and fierce winds, according to relief workers.

Bangladesh, a tropical nation meshed by the Ganges River delta, has 120 million people and is buffeted by floods and cyclones that kill hundreds of people every year. A 1991 cyclone killed 139,000 people.