A destructive F2

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...

touched down in

Brahmanbaria District Brahmanbaria ( bn, ব্রাহ্মণবাড়িয়া, translit=Brahmôṇbaṛiya) is a district in eastern Bangladesh located in the Chittagong Division. Geographically, it is mostly farmland and is topographically part of the Ga ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

at 16:50

local time Local time is the time observed in a specific locality. There is no canonical definition. Originally it was mean solar time, but since the introduction of time zones it is generally the time as determined by the time zone in effect, with daylight s ...

. The tornado ploughed through agricultural land, and into at least 25 villages within a span of 20 minutes. It destroyed over 1,700 homes and damaged hundreds more. At least 36 people were killed and 431 were injured; mainly due to poor building construction practices, leading to collapses and the lack of an early warning system.

Meteorological history

The tornado formed at 16:50 local time. According to local residents, at 17:00,

rain Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water f ...

and a

hailstorm Hail is a form of solid precipitation. It is distinct from ice pellets (American English "sleet"), though the two are often confused. It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is called a hailstone. Ice pellets generally fal ...

occurred. It traveled east of its starting point in Ramrail, and then changed direction to the southeast, before changing to an easternly direction and dissipating at Ahmedabad. It traveled a total of . It passed over bodies of water and became a

waterspout A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex (usually appearing as a funnel cloud, funnel-shaped cloud) that occurs over a body of water. Some are connected to a cumulus congestus cloud, some to a cumuliform cloud and some to a cumulonimbus clou ...

, sending volumes of water into the air. Fishes at a nearby pond were picked up and deposited across the area. The water level in the pond reportedly fell by a foot. Moving through a

marsh A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found at ...

, the tornado also deposited large amounts of clay across the field. Many houses were destroyed and trees uprooted during the event, while residents heard a "strange noise" for many minutes. Intense

lightning Lightning is a naturally occurring electrostatic discharge during which two electric charge, electrically charged regions, both in the atmosphere or with one on the land, ground, temporarily neutralize themselves, causing the instantaneous ...

activity was interpreted from reports of a red fiery glow in the sky. There were no meteorological stations in the vicinity of the tornado, hence many scientific parameters cannot be determined. According to government officials however, the travel speed of the tornado is thought to be up to . According to the

Bangladesh Meteorological Department The Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) ( bn, বাংলাদেশ আবহাওয়া অধিদপ্তর) also known as ''Abohawa Office'' (Weather Office) is the national meteorological organization of Bangladesh, working u ...

, the tornado was assigned an F2 rating on the

Fujita scale The Fujita scale (F-Scale; ), or Fujita–Pearson scale (FPP scale), is a scale for rating tornado intensity, based primarily on the damage tornadoes inflict on human-built structures and vegetation. The official Fujita scale category is determ ...

with wind speeds of (written as ). Field surveys indicate the average radius of the tornado ranged from . At its maximum, the tornado was wide. A area was affected by strong tornadic winds, with a area suffering extreme damage. It was reported that total damage and 90% of the recorded fatalities occurred in this area.

Impact

Between its 12-kilometer travel distance from Ramrail to Ahmedabad, the narrow but strong and deadly tornado also struck 20 other villages. The village of Dubla suffered the greatest damage, and widespread major damage also occurred in Fulbaria and Chinnari. At least 28,913 people lived in the affected area, or which, 8,615 were significantly affected. At least 38 deaths and 431 injuries were recorded. A government figure stated that 1,778 homes were completely destroyed while 744 were partially destroyed. Some 1,731 families across eight unions in Brahmanbaria were affected. Numerous homes, most of which were small and of frail construction, were completely destroyed, though a few well-built structures sustained major damage as well. Debris was scattered in all directions, and homes that were hit ranged from lightweight metal shacks, to small masonry homes. Several people were killed after being picked up and thrown by the tornado, and two of the fatalities were a woman and her baby, tossed 250 yards from their home. The woman was pronounced dead while her child was transported to the

Dhaka Medical College and Hospital Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (abbreviated DMCH) is a public medical college and hospital located in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. It houses medical school as well as a tertiary care hospital on one campus. The country's first ev ...

, where she died later that evening. The body of another woman was found near a

latrine A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground (pit latrine), or m ...

, and three relatives of one survivor were among the fatalities. The partial collapse of a district jailhouse resulted in the death of a guard, but all the other occupants survived. Several thousand trees were uprooted, snapped, or debarked by the tornado, while utility poles and lines suffered major damage. Some 1,300 livestock were killed by the tornado as well. Farm fields were scoured by the tornado, and over 1,200 acres of agricultural land used to grow rice and vegetables were either destroyed or damaged. Several hundred to thousand public facilities like

tube well A tube well is a type of water well in which a long, -wide, stainless steel tube or pipe is bored underground. The lower end is fitted with a strainer, and a pump lifts water for irrigation. The required depth of the well depends on the dep ...

s and latrines were left unsuitable for use. One man was also fatally

electrocuted Electrocution is death or severe injury caused by electric shock from electric current passing through the body. The word is derived from "electro" and "execution", but it is also used for accidental death. The term "electrocution" was coined ...

on his rooftop while attempting to survey the damage.

Aftermath

About 100 people were immediately transported to medical centers for their injuries. The initial death toll was reported at 10. Displaced residents took refuge at school facilities while the local government established makeshift tents in the affected villages. The local government provided each surviving family with 15 kg of rice,

corrugated sheet metal Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a bu ...

, as well as 9,000

Bangladeshi taka The Bangladeshi taka ( bn, টাকা, currency sign, sign: , ISO 4217, code: BDT, Short form (linguistics), short form: Tk) is the currency of the Bangladesh, People's Republic of Bangladesh. In Unicode, it is encoded at . Issuance of ban ...

s (Tk) within 20 hours of the disaster. Relatives of the dead were compensated Tk 20,000. Individuals whose homes were damaged were provided Tk 6,000 to rebuild, and Tk 5,000 was given to those who were injured.

Gallery

File:Tornado in Brahmanbaria District, Bangladesh 2013 (1).jpg , Toppled trees and electrical poles. File:Tornado in Brahmanbaria District, Bangladesh 2013 (3).jpg, Damage to homes. File:Tornado in Brahmanbaria District, Bangladesh 2013 (2).jpg , Debris strewn across the ground. File:Tornado in Brahmanbaria District, Bangladesh 2013 (4).jpg , Damage near two ponds.

References

External links