Cyclone Sidr missed Chittagong where I live and operate my painting service 'Reinforcements by Post'. We experienced a power cut for eight hours but no other services were disrupted. My studio is built like a nuclear shelter so I hadn't worried too much.

Cleft lip and pallet operations, sponsored by my club, were arranged for 21st to 23rd November which meant that I was in Jessore and Kulna just after cyclone Sidr. I was able to see the aftermath of the cyclone in and around Kulna which was where the cyclone was most destructive.

Much of the rice crop in the area has been flattened. Farmers are trying to salvage as much of the crop as possible. Trees, crops, bamboo huts and corrugated iron building material in the path of the cyclone were all crushed. In some places one field of rice was left standing while an adjacent crop was destroyed.

I took a two day river trip back to Dhaka from Kulna. For hundreds of miles everything adjacent to the river, including trees, boats and settlements, had been badly beaten by the storm. Survivors boarding the boat told me that fifty houses, together with fifty families, had been washed away at one place. At a ferry stop we passed four hundred people had been killed by cyclone Sidr.

People are now moving from affected areas to the capital which is creating its own problems. Coming months will see a rise in food prices due to failure of the current crop. We were already suffering a crisis due to rapid increases in the cost of food resulting from fuel cost increases. We always see inflation in the cost of food, and other items, during the EID festival which is coming in mid December. So Bangladesh faces tough times ahead.