2008 North Indian Ocean cyclone season severe cyclonic storm. The JTWC unofficially tracked seven systems, with six having one-minute sustained winds greater than 65 km/h (40 mph), slightly above their 32-year average of five. Activity was mostly limited to the Bay of Bengal, with only two depressions developing in the Arabian Sea. Somewhat unusually, no depression developed during the month of July due to the lack of a prominent monsoon. Collectively, there were a total of 30 days of activity in the basin, with no storms existing simultaneously. The first and most destructive storm of the season, Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy Delta in southern Myanmar,
2008 North Indian Ocean cyclone season with a storm surge. Approximately 800,000 homes were severely damaged or destroyed and infrastructure was devastated. An estimated 138,373 people lost their lives and damage reached 11.7 trillion Burmese kyat (US$12.9 billion). Nargis is regarded as the worst disaster in the nation's history as well as the fourth-deadliest tropical cyclone on record. Other storms throughout the season caused significant damage in Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and Yemen. A depression in October was responsible for 180 deaths and US$1 billion in damage across Yemen. Overall, approximately 138,927 people were killed and losses totaled $14.7 billion (2008 USD). In late April, the