the day after cyclone sidr

more from Kathryn Ward in USA:

Some news BBC and NYT and blog reports are beginning to trickle in about the aftermath of Sidr, which flattened the Bangladeshi coast and moved on through Bangladesh before turning into a tropical storm. So far the death toll has been far lower than the previous big cyclone (600+ and rising) owing to early warnings, evacuations, etc., but given outages of the national power grid, blocked roads & debris, rescue workers are having a hard time reaching people. Dhaka experienced a Category 3 hurricane; friends reached via mobiles (cell phones) report that residents have had little or no power or water since the storm. Uncultured Project blogger Shawn has several posts of his experiences, including cheers when the electricity came on for an hour and the roar of generators in the streets. Signs of Bangladeshi resilience are everywhere.

Perhaps one sign of development/ICT: last night Nari Jibon English teacher and blogger Bipa contacted me on email via her cell phone browser because that was her only power supply for communication during the power outages. She's ok.

I hope that the USA and other international media and bloggers continue to cover this ongoing situation and post Sidr recovery. We will post more stories from Nari Jibon staff and students as we receive them, the Nari Jibon office reopens, we check our backup batteries for our computer, maybe power is restored and our broadband connections are working. Nonetheless, the essential thing that people need to use a computer: power! This seems to be in short supply in Bangladesh right now.