The telling toll of tornado

This tornado, like its somewhat lower-intensity earlier version that hit us sometime ago came banging almost out of the blue; because this is the Bangla month of Chaitra, not quite the time when the nor'wester season was expected to begin. For, traditionally the onset of tornadoes has been associated with the month of Baishakh: clearly, the twisters are hitting us before time. This makes us sit up and take note of the changing climatic pattern being increasingly attributed to the phenomenon of global warming.

While we must keep our antenna high on the aberrant climatic cycles, there are certain things which are fairly predictable about the nature's behaviour. For instance, if the atmospheric temperature rises in certain area, lightened air will travel out of that place leaving a vacuum there. The heavier wind around will rush into the void, creating a twister of great velocity and destructive power. Since the atmosphere is heating up now, storms are not only to be expected but must also be deemed to be predictable. We need our weather forecasting system to be attuned to such an element of predictability, so that the weather bulletins can be issued on short notice to reflect the hour-by-hour change in the weather parametres. Then, the relevant warnings are required to be relayed through the by-cycle method which has proved a success in the case of cyclone preparedness.

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Now, the scale of devastation wrought by Monday's tornado spells out the order of priorities in which relief materials should be rushed out to the affected areas. The victims need shelter, food, potable water, medicines and, above all, prompt emergency services in hospitals which are reportedly incapacitated by the onrush of injured victims. Such succour should be complemented by house building grants as well as money sanctioned for rebuilding the damaged schools and madrashas. Time is of the essence.