Below is a picture of a tropical cyclone breaking up. You can tell it is breaking up because the eye of the storm is no longer well developed and also, the spiral patterns of the lower clouds can be clearly seen.
Below, there is another picture showing how tropical cyclones reach Bangladesh:
The black arrows represent the tropical cyclones funnelling up through the ocean in the direction of Bangladesh. When they reach Bangladesh, they cause chaos and destruction.
When a tropical cyclone occurred and what happened:
A tropical cyclone hit the East Coast of Bangladesh on April 29th 1991. 140000 people were killed in this storm and 1.7 million were left homeless. Torrential rain and winds ranging from 120km per hour – 242km per hour battered the Bangladesh coastline through the night. The storm reached its peak at around midnight. The cyclone also brought a huge tidal wave which measured 6.4metres high.
Below, is a picture of how the tidal wave occurred.
The red arrow shows strong the winds approaching the Bangladesh coastline, and the black arrow shows the air pressure rising. So as the air pressure rises, so does the sea level. Along with this, the fierce winds are driving the water forward forcing a huge wave to form.
How the people tried to survive?
When the people of Bangladesh found out that there was a tropical cyclone heading there way, most of them just waited until the tropical cyclone was close to the coast.
As the cyclone approached, the people then rushed to the cyclone shelter for safety. As midnight drew close, a quarter of the population of Bangladesh had to stand in the shelter and wait until the storm was over.
A tropical cyclone shelter is held on very high stilts. It is held on stilts so the water level cannot reach the people.
What problems and advantages had occurred socially, environmentally and economically after the storm had left?
KEY:
ADVANTAGES - Blue
DISADVANTAGES - Red
What can be done to ‘manage’ the tropical cyclones?
Although tropical cyclones cannot be prevented, they can be managed by people. Here are some ways in which they can do this:
- The people of Bangladesh could practice drills on what to do if a cyclone occurred.
- Grow mangrove trees to stabilise the water banks.
- Save money on building schools etc. by using the cyclone shelters. And they could use the money that they save to build more cyclone shelters.
- Make more embankments to stop the water levels from flooding Bangladesh.
- Houses could be reinforced to decrease the chances of them being destroyed.
Conclusion:
I have now finally come to the conclusion that, despite a lot of options on how to manage tropical cyclones, the only valid conclusion is, that people could be persuaded to donate money to Bangladesh to build more cyclone shelters and reinforce a lot of the buildings. I had come to this conclusion after researching on many of the manageable options.
Jagbinder Singh Dhillon Geography
