Cyclone Aila 2009: Initial Assessment Report with focus on Khulna District

Cyclone 02B, later named as Aila hit the south-western coastline of Bangladesh and eastern part of the West Bengal province of neighboring country India on the midday of May 25, 2009. On 3 June 2009 official estimated from both the countries place the death toll at 296 which is still expected to rise. That makes Aila the deadliest cyclone so far in 2009. Satkhira and Khulna districts of Bangladesh suffered the heaviest damage along with Bagerhat, Pirojpur, Barisal, Patuakhali, Bhola, Laksmipur, Noakhali, Feni, Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar. Aila made landfall with sustained winds between 65 and 75 mph (74 mph is the lowest threshold for a Category one hurricane). When landfall occurred, it brought with it a deadly storm surge between 10-13 feet high along the western Bangladesh coastlines. This strong storm surge forced the embankment to breakdown in the vulnerable points and flooded the coastal areas.

The whole incident took about 4-5 minutes leaving the people no time to move to safety, thus inflicted heavy damage on human lives, livestock and poultry, infrastructures and crops. The cyclone Aila affected at least 12 coastal districts with heavy damage to mainly Satkhira, Khulna, Bhola and Noakhali. An emergency team was fielded jointly by Unnayan Onneshan (UO), Humanity Watch (HW) and Nijera Kori (NK) to assess the huge damage posed by Aila and to observe and document the humanitarian conditions in the affected areas. The team focused on Khulna as all the organizations involved in the survey team mainly work within Khulna district, and hold special interest in the humanitarian conditions and damage situation in the region. Photo: NASA's Terra satellite saw Aila on May 25 over India and Bangladesh (Image Credit: NASA/MODIS Rapid Response) Page 8 The purpose of this document is to provide a preliminary understanding of the damages and humanitarian conditions in the Aila affected areas of Khulna District. This document also assessed the needs to support an effective and timely humanitarian response for the cyclone victims. There is also a preliminary analytical report added to this document which attempts to answer the question why Cat-1 cyclone like Aila inflicted such a heavy damage in the coastal region of Khulna.