Cyclone Bijli The Department of Relief and Rehabilitation in Bangladesh provided 450 metric tonnes of rice to four districts, 200 of which was sent to Chittagong. To prevent an outbreak of post-storm diseases, the World Health Organization activated 1,105 medical teams in the country. A storm surge of was also expected to impact coastal areas of Myanmar close to the Bangladeshi border. An estimated 6,000 fishing trawlers were to return to port by the afternoon of April 17. Following the devastating results of Cyclone Nargis almost a year prior, officials in Myanmar urged residents along the coast to evacuate. Thousands of residents
Cyclone Nargis and there have been allegations that government officials stopped updating the death toll after 138,000 to minimize political fallout. The feared 'second wave' of fatalities from disease and lack of relief efforts never materialized. Damage was estimated at over K62,988,000,000 (US$10 billion), which made it the most damaging cyclone ever recorded in this basin. The first named storm of the 2008 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, Nargis developed on 27 April in the central area of Bay of Bengal. Initially, the storm tracked slowly northwestward, and encountering favourable conditions, it quickly strengthened. Dry air weakened the cyclone on 29 April,