West BengalThe State is in the Eastern region of India. With the Tropic of Cancer running across it, the State is situated between N 2130' & 27 30' and E 85 30' & 8945'. The geography of the state is unique in the sense that its northern part is in the Himalayan Range, whereas the extreme southern part touches the Bay of Bengal and is covered by the Active Delta of the Sundarbans Mangrove forest. The greater part consists of detrital and alluvial plain.Cyclone has become almost regular feature in West Bengal, particularly, in the coastal area and their occurrences cause damage to the life and property every year in the affected areas. East Midnapore (Medinipur), 24 Parganas-South, 24 Parganas-North, Howrah, Hooghly, Kolkata is more susceptible to the hazard caused due to tropical cyclone.

BangladeshBangladesh is located in an alluvial deltaic plain. It is divided into three zones; namely hills, terraces and flood plain (e-Citizen Services 2008). Bangladesh forms the lower part of three large river basins, the Padma, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna (eCitizen Services 2008), and has 230 waterways (UNOPS 2008), and as such, Bangladesh is located in the delta of the worlds second largest river basin (United States Agency for International Development [USAID] 2007). Bangladesh has over 600 kilometers of 3 coastlines (USAID 2007). Bangladesh is part of the humid tropics, with the Himalayas, Assam and Burmese mountain ranges to the north and northeast (USAID 2007) and the funnel-shaped coast touching the Bay of Bengal on the south (Ali 1996)[footnoteRef:1]. The human settlements in the coastal area are mostly developed in an unorganized and isolated manner, making community efforts to cope with disasters extremely difficult (Miyan 2005). This peculiar geography of Bangladesh brings not only the life-giving monsoons but also catastrophic cyclones, tornadoes and floods[footnoteRef:2] (Banglapedia). [1: An Assessment of Cyclone Mitigation and Management Policies of Bangladesh:A Focus on Early Warning SystemsBy Tiffany Bisson] [2: Banglapedia.com retrieved from http://www.banglapedia.org/HT/C_0469.htm on June 20, 2015]

History of CyclonesThough the frequency of Tropical Cyclones (TCs) in the North Indian Ocean covering the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea is the least in the world (7% of the global total), their impact on the east coast of India as well as the Bangladesh coast is relatively more devastating. This is evident from the fact that in the last 270 years, 21 of the 23 major cyclones (with a loss of about 10,000 lives or more) worldwide occurred over the area surrounding the Indian subcontinent (India and Bangladesh). This is primarily due to the serious storm tide effect in the area (National Disaster Management Guidelines, NDMA).

Although global warming is partly responsible for the global increase in disasters, much of these are due to environmental and other factors such as zoning laws and urban migration (Guha-Sapir, D'Aoust, Vos and Hoyois).

Globally, the number of cyclones has increased more than threefold from 1970 to 2006(Shultz et al, 2005).The strength and number of major cyclones may be increasing because of higher sea surface temperatures associated with global warming[footnoteRef:3]. [3: Romm J.Climate change is increasing the frequency of category 5 stormsGrist, 4 September 2007. Available from:http://www.grist.org/article/hurricanes-are-getting-stronger-thanks-to-global-warming[accessed 25 October 2011].]

Frequency of cyclones in the world

Source: Reduced death rates from cyclones in Bangladesh: what more needs to be done? (Haque et al, 2011)The storm surge represents a major cause of death and injury during a cyclone. In Bangladesh the maximum value of this storm surge has been reported to be as high as 13m[footnoteRef:4]. Severe cyclones occur mostly during pre-monsoon (April-May) and post-monsoon (September-December) period1 . Tropical Cyclones (TCs) in the Bay of Bengal striking the east coast of India and Bangladesh usually produce a higher storm surge compared to elsewhere in the world because of the special nature of the coastline, shallow coastal ocean bottom topography and characteristics of tide. Their coastal impact in this region is very large because of the low, flat coastal terrain, high density of population, low awareness of community, inadequate response and preparedness and absence of hedging mechanism (South Asia Disaster Report, Saarc 2007). [4: Source: Reduced death rates from cyclones in Bangladesh: what more needs to be done? (Haque et al, 2011)]