Bangladesh struggles

Efforts to bring aid to millions of Bangladeshis affected by Cyclone Sidr will be boosted by the arrival of US ships this week.

On November 15, the most powerful cyclone in a decade razed hundreds of villages, left at least 3,000 people dead and countless more homeless.  It could have been worse: an early warning system limited the death toll (the last major cyclone in 1991 killed 140,000).

Bangladesh's authorities have struggled. Having banned the activities of the two main political parties -- who have extensive rural networks that have proved critical in earlier disaster relief efforts -- the military-backed regime faces a serious test. Amid rising prices, the public may yet rise against a government that has been tolerated so far in the hope it would clean up the political system.

The cyclone is a harbinger of the country's future biblical disasters. Climate change poses an acute threat to the country, which faces losing around one fifth of its land area to rising sea levels by 2050.