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<br />PSOO-14 <br /> <br />Yuichi Ono <br />Department of Geography, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242 <br />phone: 330-672-2045 fax: 330-672-4304 <br />e-mail: yuichiono@hotmail.com <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />Climatology of Tornadoes in Bangladesh, I966-1995 <br /> <br />Bangladesh has a long history of tornado incidents. Several hundreds of people were <br />killed by tornadoes many times. The Manikganj Tornado in 1989 may be the world's deadliest <br />tornado with unofficial estimates of between 800 and 1300 deaths. The Tangail Tornado in 1996 <br />killed at least 605 people with over 30,000 injuries. <br />Fujita (1973) showed a map of worldwide tornadoes, and it pinpointed some areas in <br />Bangladesh. 1t also showed the relative intensity of the strongest tornadoes and the tornadoes in <br />Bangladesh area were ranked as F-4. According to Fujita's map, no other places were ranked <br />stronger than F-3 except for the United States. Although Bangladesh was known for the strong <br />devastating tornadoes, tornado climatology in Bangladesh has not been established. <br />Newspaper accounts (a local major English newspaper, Bangladesh Observer) were used <br />to see tornado frequency from 1966-95 by carefully screening all the pages. This is probably the <br />best way to gather data because tornado data do not exist in Bangladesh except for several big <br />events which caused a great deal of damage. <br />There were 181 reported tornadoes in Bangladesh during 1966-95. Tornado frequency is <br />greatest in central Bangladesh where values are similar to tornado frequencies in the United States <br />such as Ohio, Georgia, 'Vi~consin, etc.. Three districts had no reported tornadoes and they are a <br />less populated areas with rain forests and hills. ., <br />There were 4654 tornado deaths during the same period (155 tornado deaths per year). <br />More than half of reported tornadoes caused deaths with an average of 25.7 deaths per reported <br />tornado. These values are much larger than reported in the United States and reflect the extreme <br />vulnerability of the Bangladesh society to tornadoes. <br />Tornado frequency peaks in the April-May pre-monsoon period, especially in the evening <br />when severe weather forecast, awareness, warning, and preparedness activities should be focused. <br />Another peak is in September-October after the monsoon. Ten tornadoes killed more than 100 <br />people, and all ofthem occurred in April. <br />The purpose of this study is to provide a modem climatology of tornadoes in Bangladesh. <br />This builds upon earlier tornado c1imatologies for South Asia but is the first work of this type to <br />focus on Bangladesh supported by data longer records. This study is useful for preparedness, <br />prediction, education, and so on. <br /> <br />Looking for sponsors! <br /> <br />I have been doing research on designing family and public tornado shelters/or <br />Bangladesh in my dissertation. If you are interested in funding my project, please contact me. <br />This project would save thousands of lives in the future. <br /> <br />e <br /> <br />~ <br />