AP, Geneva
Improvements to a global network of early warning systems helped save many lives in Bangladesh last week when a powerful cyclone pummeled the country’s southwestern coast, an intergovernmental group said Wednesday.
The government’s official death toll Wednesday stood at 3,167, with 1,724 people missing. Though the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society has suggested the final figure could be around 10,000.
But the toll could have been much higher if authorities had not used weather alerts to get people into emergency shelters in time, said Jose Achache, director of the 73-nation Group on Earth Observations, a new body working to link the world’s weather satellites. [Read more]