Worst of the Century

The Pacific has its typhoons, the Atlantic its hurricanes and the Indian Ocean its cyclones. Last week one of the deadliest cyclones in history battered the Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan with 150-m.p.h. winds and a 20-ft. tidal wave.

In the early hours after the storm, some 350 bodies were sighted along one eight-mile stretch of coastline. In the Bay of Bengal, one ship was torn apart and scores of other craft were missing. The greatest devastation apparently hit the islands of Hatia and Dakhin Shahbazpur, part of which was washed into the sea. Estimates of casualties ranged from 20,000 to 60,000, which would make it the region's worst cyclone of the century and second only to the deadly cyclone of 1876, which took an estimated 200,000 lives.

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