The death toll of the devastating cyclone in Bangladesh climbed to 1,860 till Sunday morning, according to the latest figure released by the country's disaster management ministry.

 

However, unofficial casualty figure has exceeded 2,000 as massive search operations into inaccessible areas continued.

 

The terrible cyclone Sidr lashed Bangladesh's south and southwestern coastal regions on November 15 evening with a speed of up to 240 km per hour, affecting some 25 out of the country's 64 districts.

 

The disaster management ministry prepared a rough estimate of losses caused by Sidr that will be a severe blow to the economy, which is already suffering huge losses from back-to-back floods in the middle of this year.

 

The cyclone hit 103 sub-districts, affecting 2.75 million people of about 844,000 families. The storm also killed 242,000 livestock and completely destroyed crops on 18,122 acre (about 7, 339 hectares) land.

 

Besides, According to the estimate, 273,000 houses were totally flattened.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2007)