Survivors of Bangladesh Storm Rebuild Island Huts

Peasants using sticks, boards and sheets of tin are already rebuilding flimsy huts on this and other fertile delta islands ravaged by a cyclone and tidal waves.

Government officials say at least 10,000 people perished in the storm, although many of the bodies have not been recovered. Thousands died when 100-m.p.h. winds and waves 12 feet high swept across the low islands formed by the rich silt from the Ganges and Meghna rivers.

Survivors mourned their dead, but stayed on the islands. The peasants had nowhere else to go, and besides, they said, the soil is good.

A government spokesman in Dhaka, the capital 210 miles to the north, outlined long-range plans to build more storm shelters and to improve communications in southern Bangladesh. But he said it could take 15 years.

Survivors Await Handouts

Survivors crouch in long lines on this nearly treeless island awaiting handouts of water, rice and vitamin tablets. The few children strong enough, or lucky enough, to have survived huddle, unsmiling, among women dressed in the brightly colored saris provided by the government.

The victims of Urirchar and the other low islands had lived a primitive life without permanent stores, electricity, roads, police, and, according to the peasants, without radios.

“These are marginal people living on marginal land on the edge of existence, and the storm took away their margin,” said William R. Joslin, the director of the U.S. Aid for International Development, who is in Bangladesh to help with relief efforts.

The government and Red Cross said they warned islanders of the approaching storm through broadcasts and volunteers on the islands. The warnings, officials said, began on the day before the cyclone struck on May 24.

Some survivors said they ignored the warnings. Previous ones, they said, had been false alarms. Others said they heard no warnings at all.

“The warning was there. But they didn’t want to leave. . . . They had their chickens, their homes,” said President Hussain Mohammed Ershad, who has been the martial-law ruler since 1982.

Governments around the world pledged $12 million in disaster aid for Bangladesh, ranked as one of the world’s poorest nation with an average annual per capita income of $130 and a population approaching 100 million.