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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class. It's a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello everybody, I'm Eves and you're tuned into

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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class, a show where we've traveled

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Speaker 1: back in time one day at a time. Today is

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Speaker 1: November twelve, nineteen. The day was November twelve, nineteen seventy,

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Speaker 1: the deadliest tropical cyclone on record, made landfall on the

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Speaker 1: coast of what was then East Pakistan or modern day Bangladesh.

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Speaker 1: At least three hundred thousand people died in the Bola cyclone.

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Speaker 1: The remnants of tropical Storm Nora in the Pacific Ocean

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Speaker 1: contributed to the development of a tropical depression that formed

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Speaker 1: in the Bay of Bengal on November eighth, nineteen seventy.

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Speaker 1: The Indian Meteorological Department or i m D tracked the

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Speaker 1: system by satellite, but the technique for estimating tropical cyclone

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Speaker 1: strength from satellite presentations was new, so there were no

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Speaker 1: direct measurements of the intensity of the tropical system. The

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Speaker 1: storm drifted north for two days, then intensified rapidly. By

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Speaker 1: November eleven, it had become a well defined cyclone with

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Speaker 1: sustained winds between eighty five and ninety miles per hour.

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Speaker 1: On the twelve, the i m D estimated that the

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Speaker 1: maximum sustained winds were around one and thirty miles per hour.

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Speaker 1: It's not clear exactly how much information about the storm

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Speaker 1: Indian weather authorities communicated to Pakistan, considering the tense relations

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Speaker 1: between India and Pakistan at the time. That said, the

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Speaker 1: Pakistan Meteorological Department did issue a warning to people in

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Speaker 1: the coastal regions on the twelfth, but few people were

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Speaker 1: near or able to make it to reliable shelters, if

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Speaker 1: they even sought one at all. That afternoon, the cyclone

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Speaker 1: made landfall on the coastline of East Pakistan. It was

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Speaker 1: the sixth and strongest cyclonic storm of that year's North

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Speaker 1: Indian Ocean cyclone season. As the storm hit land, it

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Speaker 1: brought a thirty five ft high storm surge at the

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Speaker 1: Ganges Delta. It flooded the lowland plains of the Ganges Delta,

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Speaker 1: destroying hundreds of villages. The cyclone dissipated as it moved inland,

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Speaker 1: degrading to a cyclonic storm by the thirteenth, but the

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Speaker 1: combination of the storm surge and poor preparedness led to

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Speaker 1: the death of many people. The death toll of the

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Speaker 1: storm is estimated at between three hundred thousand and five

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand people. Most of the people who died were

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Speaker 1: young children. The most severely affected area was Tazi Muddon,

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Speaker 1: where nearly half of the population died and a lot

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Speaker 1: of the fishing industry in the region was destroyed. The

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Speaker 1: damage caused by the cyclone came in at around eighty

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Speaker 1: six million dollars in nineteen seventy u s D. Countries

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Speaker 1: around the world, including France, West Germany, Canada, Singapore, and

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Speaker 1: the US sent a to Pakistan, but the Pakistani government's

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Speaker 1: response was slow and the damage was made worse. In

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Speaker 1: the aftermath of the Boloside clone. People starved from the

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Speaker 1: lack of food, they drink contaminated water, and died from

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Speaker 1: dehydration or disease. Politicians in East Pakistan and the press

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Speaker 1: criticized the Pakistani government for its poor handling of the

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Speaker 1: disaster relief effort. Partly because of the government's poor response,

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Speaker 1: tensions between East and West Pakistan escalated and an opposition

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Speaker 1: party won elections in East Pakistan in December. The Bangladesh

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Speaker 1: Liberation War broke out in March of nineteen seventy one

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Speaker 1: in East Pakistan declared itself the independent Nation of Bangladesh.

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Speaker 1: In the years after the Bullet cyclone, a cyclone preparedness

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Speaker 1: program developed in Bangladesh that allowed for better disaster planning

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Speaker 1: and response in the region. I'm Eve Jeffcote and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you know a little more about history today than you

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Speaker 1: did yesterday. If you'd like to follow us on social media,

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Speaker 1: something a little bit more formal, then you can write

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Speaker 1: us at this Day at i heart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you again tomorrow.

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