Cyclone Amphan: First death reported in Bangladesh

Bangladesh : A Bangladesh Red Crescent volunteer drowned when a boat capsized while evacuating villagers in the path of Cyclone Amphan, a news report said.

"There were four of them on the boat when it sank," Nurul Islam Khan, director of the Cyclone Preparedness Programme of the Bangladesh Red Crescent, told AFP.

Authorities have been trying their best to evacuate people out from the trail of destruction projected for cyclone Amphan that happens to be second "super cyclone" to form over the Bay of Bengal since records began.

Odisha was hit by a super cyclone that left nearly 10,000 dead in 1999, eight years after a typhoon, tornadoes and flooding killed 139,000 in Bangladesh. In 1970, Cyclone Bhola killed half a million.

Bangladesh authorities fear that Amphan will be the most powerful storm front since Cyclone Sidr killed about 3,500 people and causing billions of dollars in damage in 2007.