Services have been suspended for 54 hours in the Indian port of Chittadong. Quays will remain off limits to port traffic until midnight tonight, while ports in the Bay of Bengal will stay closed for 12 hours.
This is the result of the damage caused by the cyclone that flooded coastal villages in southern Bangladesh and eastern India yesterday, leaving 800,000 people temporarily homeless.
The Port of Colombo, the regional hub port serving the Bangladeshi and Indian markets, has also been facing increasing disruptions due to the poor weather and sea conditions that created havoc in the region over the last week.
On Monday morning, the cyclone weakened after the landfall in the Patuakhali district of Bangladesh on Sunday evening, with winds of up to 135 km per hour.
The total death toll in the two countries is at least 16.
Translation by Giles Foster
