Dhaka: At least five people were killed and over 100 injured as an advancing cyclone started battering the southern coastlines. The weather department warned that the storm was expected to be at its most intense along the coast by Saturday evening.

Officials said that stormy winds due to the peripheral impact of the cyclone, code-named Roanu, had flattened several hundred huts in Bhola along the southwestern coast causing two deaths and injuring over a 100.

Reports said a minor child and a woman appeared to be the first victims of the cyclone when it hit Bhola but the storm system was advancing along the coastal belt towards the southwest and had made for very rough seas.

The incessant downpour under the influence of the brewing cyclone caused hill slides in the southeastern port city of Chittagong, killing a minor girl and her mother. The fifth death was reported from southwestern Patuakhali.

The latest met office bulletin issued in Dhaka said that the cyclone had advanced further in a north-eastward direction. “It was centered at 09:00am (Saturday) about 140 km southwest of Chittagong port, 135 km west of Cox’s Bazar port, 165 km southeast of Mongla port and 75 km southeast of Payra port,” the bulletin read.

The cyclone was centered at about 255 km west-southwest off Chittagong, 230 km off Cox’s Bazar, 190 km off Mongla and 135 km off Payra Port at 6 in the morning.

“It is likely to move in east-north-easterly direction further and may cross Barisal-Chittagong coast by noon/afternoon of May 21,” the latest bulletin read.

The met office late on Friday turned its “local warning signals” to “danger signals” for all the country’s four seaports, asking ports of Mongla, Payra in the southwest and southeastern Chittagong to signal a category 7 alert and southeastern Cox’s Bazar 6 on a scale of 10.

“The danger signals are applicable for 14 out of 18 coastal districts,” a meteorologist earlier told Gulf News.

Authorities earlier launched a massive evacuation campaign along southern coastlines, mobilising rescue teams. Thousands of people were moved to cyclone shelters and officials were looking to shift nearly 2,150,000 people to safety in the 13 most vulnerable coastal districts before the cyclone set in.

An inter-ministerial meeting earlier scrapped Friday and Saturday’s weekend holidays for public employees in 18 coastal districts with officials saying that 50,000 volunteers trained under the Cyclone Preparedness Programme (CPP) and all Red Crescent volunteers and boy scouts were prepared to join the campaign.

Bangladesh’s main port of Chittagong, meanwhile, internally issued a “red alert” ordering ships to immediately leave the port and anchor in the outer anchorage for the safety of the facility.

Authorities also ordered suspension of ferry services in the internal riverine networks as the weather turned rough in the rivers as well.

Officials in Dhaka said the entire coastal region had witnessed rainy weather with the skies remaining gloomy since Friday.

Deputy commissioner, the administrative chief of southeastern Laxmipur, Zillur Rahman, told Gulf News that many people had shown a reluctance to move to cyclone shelters despite repeated warnings by volunteers and village guards using megaphones.

“The people are exposed to danger, but most of them are unwilling to take refuge in shelters saying they were familiar with such warnings but the cyclones did not hit eventually,” he said.

Bangladesh is vulnerable to cyclones because of its location at the head of the Bay of Bengal and its high population density. The two deadliest cyclones in the country occurred in 1970 and 1991, claiming some 500,000 and 140,000 lives respectively.

But over the past 20 years, the country has managed to reduce deaths and injuries during cyclones with the most recent severe cyclone of 2007 causing 4,234 deaths.