Crops worth Tk 2.63 billion have been damaged by cyclone Bulbul made landfall in Bangladesh on Saturday (Nov 9), says Minister for Agriculture Muhammad Abdur Razzaque.

“The losses were incurred in 103 upazilas of 16 districts,” he told the media at his office on Tuesday (Nov 12).

He added that winter vegetables are amongst the crops destroyed but the damage is not as bad as the government had expected.

“The damages might go up but it will be another seven to eight days for a full report,” he said.

The minister added that crops on over nearly 280,000 hectres of land were destroyed in the storm that killed 11 people and injured at least 48.

According to the disaster management ministry, the cyclone ravaged some 4,000 to 5,000 homes in the country's south-western coastal districts where as many as 2,106,918 people were evacuated to around 5,787 cyclone centres.

It uprooted trees, damaged dwellings and croplands in different coastal districts, including Pauakhali, Bhola and Satkhira and Khulna.

The cyclonic storm, which turned into ‘severe’ from ‘very severe’ on Saturday night, completed crossing the West Bengal-Khulna coast near the Sundarbans around 5am Sunday (Nov 10) and then weakened further into a deep depression.