Bangladesh seeks $2.2 bln aid for cyclone recovery

DHAKA - Bangladesh seeks $2.21 billion in assistance from overseas donors to help recover from damage from the November 15 cyclone that killed more than 3,200 people and made millions homeless, a senior official said on Thursday.

The assistance is required to finance rebuilding infrastructures and for a long-term disaster protection programme in the affected coastal areas.

"We have requested our development partners to provide $400 million as budgetary support, $457.76 million for immediate rehabilitation of the affected areas and $1,351.09 million for sustainable protection," Aminul Islam Bhuiyan, secretary of the finance ministry's economic relations division, told Reuters.

Bangladesh made these requests at a meeting on Wednesday of the consultative group representing bilateral and multilateral donors working in Bangladesh.

Other officials said Bangladesh's army-backed interim government was still assessing the cyclone losses and the estimates could go higher.

Xian Zhu, the World Bank country director in Bangladesh, who is coordinating the donors, told the meeting they would support rehabilitation programmes in the wake of Cyclone Sidr, the worst to hit Bangladesh since 1991 when a storm killed around 143,000 people along the country's coasts.

"Long-term development programmes like forestation in the Sundarbans and in the coastal belt, construction of new cyclone shelters and well-protected schools and colleges will be implemented with the funds," Bhuiyan said.

Seasonal floods from July to September killed more than 1,000 people and the November cyclone left millions homeless.

About 1.8 million tonnes of rice, a staple food, was destroyed, official estimates show. About 553,000 hectares of crops were hit by the cyclone, causing about $292 million in damage, agriculture ministry officials said.