ORIGINAL PAPER Why relatively fewer people died? The case of Bangladesh’s Cyclone Sidr Bimal Kanti Paul Received: 26 September 2008 / Accepted: 19 December 2008 / Published online: 13 January 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract Cyclone Sidr, a Category IV storm, struck the southwestern coast of Bangla- desh on November 15, 2007 killing 3,406 people. Despite a similar magnitude, Sidr claimed far fewer lives than Cyclone Gorky, also a Category IV storm, which struck Bangladesh in 1991 causing an estimated 140,000 fatalities. The relatively low number of deaths experienced with Sidr is widely considered the result of Bangladesh government’s efforts to provide timely cyclone forecasting and early warnings, and successful evacuation of coastal residents from the projected path of Cyclone Sidr. Using information collected from both primary and secondary sources, this study identified several other reasons for the unexpectedly lower mortality associated with Cyclone Sidr relative to Cyclone Gorky. Fewer casualties may be attributed to a number of physical characteristics of Cyclone Sidr, such as duration of the storm and storm surge, landfall time and site, varied coastal ecology, and coastal embankment. This article recommends improvements to the cyclone warning systems, establishment of more public cyclone shelters, and implementation of an education campaign in coastal areas to increase the utilization of public shelters for future cyclone events. Keywords Cyclone Sidr Á Cyclone Gorky Á Early warning systems Á Evacuation orders Á Coastal Bangladesh Á The Sundarbans 1 Introduction On the night of November 15, 2007, Cyclone Sidr, a Category IV storm, made landfall across the southwestern coastal areas of Bangladesh, leaving 3,406 people dead and causing damage totaling nearly US$ 1.7 billion (Government of Bangladesh (GOB) 2008). Despite being similar in severity, Sidr claimed far fewer lives than Cyclone Gorky, another Category IV storm, which struck Bangladesh on April 29, 1991 and killed an estimated 140,000 people (Bern et al. 1993). International media, donor countries, and foreign aid B. K. Paul (&) Department of Geography, Kansas State University, 118 Seaton Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA e-mail: bkp@ksu.edu 123 Nat Hazards (2009) 50:289–304 DOI 10.1007/s11069-008-9340-5