How a natural disaster changed the political map of Indian subcontinent

Clement Wraggle was a meteorologist in the government of Queensland, Australia since 1887.

- SATISH KUMAR SHARMA

He realized that calling tropical cyclones by the names of places of impact created confusion in communication when more than one storm developed concurrently in a basin. So, he started giving unambiguous first person names to cyclones. However, this practice got discontinued in 1897, when he retired.

Nearly fifty years later, the practice was started by many countries facing tropical cyclones. However, until 2004, it was not adopted for storms in the North Indian Ocean. So, when a tropical cyclone formed in the Bay of Bengal in November 1970, it was simply named after Bhola, after East Pakistan's largest island, which is known for its delicacy - Buffalo Curd, made from naturally congealed raw buffalo milk.

Bhola cyclone is the deadliest tropical cyclone in world in recorded history. The dance of death and destruction it unleashed left 300000 to 500000 people dead, 3 million people homeless and crippled the East Pakistan. Thecyclone also remains the most mishandled natural disaster and for that reason, it set in motion a chain of events, which hastened the creation of Bangladesh.