The years before 1890 featured thepre-1890 North Indian Ocean cyclone seasons. Each season was an event in the annual cycle oftropical cyclone formation. The North Indian tropical cyclone season has no bounds, but they tend to form between April and December, peaks in May and November. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the northernIndian Ocean. Below are the most significant cyclones in the time period. Because much of the North Indian coastline is near sea level and prone to flooding, these cyclones can easily kill many withstorm surge and flooding. These cyclones are among the deadliest on earth in terms of numbers killed.
1480 – A cyclone deepened the channels ofRama's Bridge, making it no longer possible to walk from India to Sri Lanka.[2]
1484 – A cyclone struck theChittagong Coast ofBangladesh with hurricane force winds, killing 200,000 (Indian system 2,00,000) people.[a][1]
6 May 1558 – A tropical cyclone struck theSundarbans. The storm lasted for five hours, killing 500,000 people.[3]
1582 – A tropical cyclone impacted the Sundarbans andWest Bengal which killed 200,000 people.[a] The severity lasted about five-hours, with the associated winds and thunderstorm destroying houses and boats along the coast near Bakerganj (presently inBarisal andPatuakhali). Only Hindu temples with a strong foundation were spared.[4]
15 May 1618 – A tropical cyclone impactedBombay and was described as "disastrous".[5] AJesuit historian who witnessed the event described the activities of thunderstorms and whirlwind has raised waves so high.[6] This disaster was accompanied withMumbai earthquake,[7] which resulted in 2,000 deaths.[8][9]
1669 – A tropical cyclone caused heavy damage in the coastal areas of the Sundarbans.[10]
10 November 1681 – A tropical cyclone affectedNagapattinam and many small vessels were lost. 14,000 people died in the storm.[1]
12 October 1688 – A tropical cyclone impacted the Sundarbans, killing 60,000 people inSagar Island.[3]
September 1698 – A tropical cyclone struck Bombay.[5]
1699 – A tropical cyclone impacted the Sundarbans, killing 60,000 people.[4]
18 April 1700 – A tropical cyclone made landfall inAndhra Pradesh, sinking vessels near the coast. One ship bound forBengal was driven ashore.[1]
30 November 1702 – A tropical cyclone struck Bombay and destroyed all the small boats of the island, and the mango, jack and palm trees were blown down. The wind destroyed almost the whole produce of the island and wrecked the greater part of the shipping. The cyclone was preceded with a plague outbreak.[5]
December 1706 – A tropical cyclone made landfall in Andhra Pradesh, killing many people in Kottapalam and the surrounding area.[1]
17 September 1707 – A tropical cyclone and an accompanying flood left 9,000 people homeless in the Sundarbans.[3]
18 December 1709 – A tropical cyclone struckTamil Nadu. A large wave caused coastal inundation.[1]
13–14 November 1721 – A tropical cyclone impacted Madras.[11]
3 November 1737 – A tropical cyclone coincided with an earthquake and killed 317 people in the Sundarbans.[3]
9 November 1740 - A tropical cyclone impacted Bombay.[5]
11 September 1742 – A tropical cyclone struck Bombay forcing all the ships at harbour from their anchors. Royal ships calledSomerset andSalisbury, were damaged in the tempest. The storm bought great devastation and was described as "The Records state that the gale was so excessive, 'as has not been exceeded in the memory of any one now on the spot'".[14][5]
2 October 1747 – A tropical cyclone crossed the coast nearChennai.[1]
31 October 1752 – A strong tropical cyclone affected Chennai and caused heavy rain lasting several days.[1]
1760 – A tropical cyclone struckKhulna, devastating the coasts of western Bangladesh.[1]
30 December 1760 – A tropical cyclone struckPondicherry, killing somewhere between 200–11,000 people.[1]
7 March 1762 – A tropical cyclone struck Bombay.[5]
2 April 1762 – A tropical cyclone coincided with an earthquake and killed 14 people in the Sundarbans.[3]
1763 – A tropical cyclone struckNoakhali, washing away people, houses, and cattle.[1]
21 October 1763 – A tropical cyclone crossed the coast nearChennai.[1]
1765 – A tropical cyclone devastated coastal Chittagong.[1]
1767 - A tropical cyclone moved ashore modern-day Bangladesh near Bakerganj.[4] 30,000 people died in the storm.[1]
1807 – A tropical cyclone impacted West Bengal and killed 90,000 people.[citation needed]
7 May 1810 – A tropical cyclone affected the entire Bengal region, killing 1,025 people.[3]
1822 - A cyclone struck Bangladesh and killed 40,000 people.[17]
1831 – An intense tropical cyclone impacted Odisha.[18]
October 31, 1831 - A severe cyclonic storm moved ashore Barisal in Bangladesh with a storm surge of 2.12 m (7.0 ft), killing 22,000 people and over 50,000 cattle.[4]
21 May 1833 – A tropical cyclone impacted West Bengal and killed around 50,000 people, with a record low of 890.6 millibars in North Indian Ocean, lowest over Indian Ocean.[19][20]
15 June 1837 - A cyclone struck Mumbai that destroyed 400 houses.[14]
11 November 1842 – A tropical cyclone struck the Sundarbans, killing 171cattle.[3]
1847 – A tropical cyclone impacted Bengal where it caused 75,000 human deaths and killed 6000 cattle.[21][4]
On 5 October a powerful cyclone hit near Calcutta, India, killing around 300,100 people.[23] The anemometer in the city was blown away during the cyclone. Over 100 brick homes and tens of thousands of tiled and straw huts were leveled. Most ships in the harbor (172 out of 195) were either damaged or destroyed.[24] The cyclone of 1864 destroyed the ports atKhejuri andHijli.[25]
On 31 October a cyclone hit theMeghna River Delta area of India. The storm surge killed 100,000, and the disease after the storm killed another 100,000.[citation needed]
A cyclone had formed near theLaccadive Islands on 24 May 555 kilometres (345 mi) west of southern India. The SSMergui encountered the cyclone off the Horn of Africa, 400 kilometres (250 mi) east ofSocotra on 1 June and reported it stronger than the tropical cyclone which struck Calcutta in 1864. Just before midnight on the night of 1 June theDiomed reported winds of hurricane force and a pressure of 984 millibars (29.1 inHg). The shipPeshawar reported a westerly hurricane at the east end of the Gulf of Aden towards midnight on the night of 2 June. At noon on 3 June theTantallon reported a pressure of 943 millibars (27.8 inHg) near 12.5N 45.5E. On 3 June the GermancorvetteAugusta, the French dispatch boatRenard, and the British ship SSSpeke Hall were lost in the storm in theGulf of Aden. The system continued westward and shrank in as it moved into the entrance of theRed Sea, crossing the coast ofDjibouti. It became the first north Indian ocean tropical cyclone in history to transit the Gulf of Aden with full hurricane intensity and held the record of westernmost landfalling North Indian Ocean tropical cyclone ever.[26]
In November a cyclonic storm with hurricane-force winds struck Gujarat causing a shipSSVaitarna to loss at sea, presumably sunk, killing more than 740 people.[27][28][29][30][31][32]
^Elsevier Science (September 15, 2013). F. Shroder Jr, J.; Sorkhabi, Rasoul (eds.).Earthquake Hazard, Risk and Disasters. 9780123964724. p. 110.ISBN9780123964724. Retrieved25 November 2023.cyclones as earthquakes, as has occurred in Mumbai in 1618 and Kolkata in 1737 (Bilham, 1994; Bilham and Gaur, 2013).
^abDipankar C. Patnaik; N. Sivagnanam (November 2007). "Disaster Vulnerability of Coastal States: A Short Case Study of Orissa, India".Social Science Research Network: 4.SSRN1074845.
"Cyclone, Hurricane, White squall, Typhoon.".The Cyclopaedia of Indian And Of Eastern And Southern Asia: Commercial, Industrial, and Scientific, 3rd Edition. Vol. I. London: Bernard Quaritch. 1885. pp. 866–868. Retrieved2009-08-15.
