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1970 Bhola cyclone

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Also known as Ganges-Brahmaputra delta cyclone, Bhola cyclone

North Indian cyclone in 1970

Key facts

Formed
8 November 1970 ( 1970-11-08 )
Dissipated
13 November 1970 ( 1970-11-13 )
Highest winds
185 km/h (115 mph)
Lowest pressure
960 hPa ( mbar ); 28.35 inHg
Fatalities
300,000–500,000 total ( Deadliest tropical cyclone on record)
Damage
$86.4 million (1970 USD )
Areas affected
East Pakistan India

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
tropical cyclone
Image
15B 1970-11-12 0956Z.png
Number of deaths
500000
Show 7 more facts
start time
1970-11-03
end time
1970-11-13
lowest atmospheric pressure
966
maximum sustained winds
240
Commons category
1970 Bhola cyclone
on focus list of Wikimedia project
Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
point in time
1970-00-00
Sources (4)

via Wikidata · CC0

~32 min read

Encyclopedic overview

The 1970 Bhola cyclone, also known as the Great Cyclone of 1970 or simply the Bhola Cyclone, was the deadliest tropical cyclone on record, as well as one of the deadliest humanitarian disasters ever recorded. It struck East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) and India's West Bengal on 12 November 1970. At least 300,000 people died in the storm, possibly as many as 500,000, primarily as a result of the storm surge that flooded much of the low-lying islands of the Ganges Delta. The Bhola cyclone was the sixth and strongest cyclonic storm of the 1970 North Indian Ocean cyclone season.

The cyclone formed over the central Bay of Bengal on 8 November and travelled northward, intensifying as it did so. It reached its peak with winds of 185 km/h (115 mph) on 10 November, and made landfall on the coast of East Pakistan on the following afternoon. The storm surge devastated many of the offshore islands, wiping out villages and destroying crops throughout the region. In the most severely affected upazila Tazumuddin, over 45% of the population of 167,000 were killed by the storm.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “1970 Bhola cyclone” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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