(Redirected from 1737 Calcutta Cyclone)The years before 1980 featured the 'Pre-1980 North Indian Ocean cyclone seasons'. Each season was an ongoing event in the annual cycle of tropical cyclone formation. The North Indian tropical cyclone season has no bounds, but they tend to form between April and December, with peaks in May and November. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the northern
Indian Ocean.
Below are the most significant cyclones in the time period. Because the much of the North Indian coastline is near sea level and prone to flooding, these cyclones can easily kill many with storm surge and flooding. These cyclones are among the deadliest on earth in terms of numbers killed.
'North Indian cyclone seasons'
'Pre-1980' 1980-1984 1985-1989 1990-1994 1995-1999
1700s
1737 Calcutta Cyclone
On
7 October 1737, a
natural disaster struck the city of
Calcutta (modern-day Kolkata) in
India. For a long time this was believed in
Europe to have been the result of an
earthquake, but it is now believed to have been a
tropical cyclone.
Thomas Joshua Moore, the duties collector for the
British East India Company in Calcutta, wrote in his official report that a storm and flood had destroyed nearly all the thatched buildings and killed 3,000 of the city's inhabitants. Other reports from merchant ships indicated an earthquake and
tidal surge were to blame, destroying 20,000 ships in the harbor and killing 300,000 people. It should be noted that the population of Calcutta at the time was around 20,000.
[1]
Although there seems to be little evidence for the popular figure of 300,000 deaths or for the existence of an earthquake at all, it is this number that shows up in popular literature. At the same time, the figure of 3000 is only an estimation of the number of deaths inside the city itself.
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Cyclone Related Disasters
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1737 Earthquake
1789 Indian Cyclone
Strong storm surge from a cyclone that hit
Coringa, India killed 20,000.
1800s
1839 Indian Cyclone
A 40-foot storm surge from a huge cyclone that hit
Coringa, India on
November 25 killed 300,000 people.
1864 Calcutta Cyclone
On
October 5, a powerful cyclone hit near Calcutta, India, killing around 60,000 people.
1876 Indian Cyclone
On
October 31, a cyclone hit the
Megna River Delta area of India. The storm surge killed 100,000, and the disease after the storm killed another 100,000
1900s
1942 Bengal Cyclone
On
October 16, a cyclone hit near the
India/
Bangladesh border, resulting in around 40,000 fatalities. A wind gust of 225 km/h (140 mph) was recorded.
1960 East Pakistan I Cyclone
6,000 deaths can be attributed to a cyclone that hit the eastern portion of
Pakistan what was known then as
East Bengal state on
October 10.
1963 East Pakistan II Cyclone
On
May 28, a cyclone hit present-day Bangladesh (then known as East Pakistan province), causing 22,000 fatalities due to storm surge and flooding.
1965 Pakistani ''Bengali'' Cyclones
Two cyclones that hit on
May 11 and
June 1 killed a total of 47,000 people.
1965 Pakistani Cyclone
A cyclone hit near
Karachi,
Pakistan on
December 15, causing about 10,000 casualties.
1970 season
A powerful cyclone that hit
Eastern Pakistan on
November 13 killed 500,000 people from storm surge, high winds, and flooding.

Tropical cyclone impacting Sri Lanka on November 23, 1978

Tropical cyclone east of Sri Lanka on May 8, 1979
1971 Orissa Cyclone
On
October 27 a tropical depression formed in the Bay of Bengal. It tracked northward, steadily strengthening until reaching a peak of 115 mph winds. The cyclone struck
Cuttack, a city in
Orissa,
India, on the 29th, and dissipated 2 days later. The storm surge and flooding from the system caused 10,000 fatalities.
1977 Andhra Pradesh Cyclone
The monsoon trough spawned a tropical depression on
November 14. It tracked westward, becoming a tropical storm on the 15th and a cyclone on the 16th. A break in the subtropical ridge pulled the cyclone northward, where it slowly strengthened to a peak of 130 mph winds. It hit the
Andhra Pradesh coastline on the 19th at that intensity, and dissipated the next day. Strong winds, heavy flooding, and storm surge of 5 meters high killed 10,000 people, left hundreds of thousands homeless, and destroyed 40% of India's food grains.
See also
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List of North Indian Ocean cyclone seasons
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List of notable tropical cyclones
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Tropical cyclone
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Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale
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List of Pacific typhoon seasons
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List of Atlantic hurricane seasons
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List of Pacific hurricane seasons
External links
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JTWC Archive
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Cyclone related disasters
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Cyclones