As the storm approached, police patrolled the coastline in the town of Cox’s Bazar carrying loudspeakers, urging people to stay indoors. The streets emptied as the cyclone intensified – the skies darkened, the winds picked up pace and the rains pounded down.
Hundreds of people crammed into a school in the city which had been turned into a temporary cyclone shelter. Mothers with babies, young children, the elderly and the frail packed into any available space in the classrooms, sleeping on desks and sitting under them.
