People gather to retrieve their belongings from the wreckage after a tornado touched down in Brahmanbaria yesterday.

AFP/Dhaka

A powerful tornado ripped through more than a dozen rural villages in eastern Bangladesh late on Friday, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 100, officials said yesterday.

The tornado wreaked havoc in Brahmanbaria district over a 15-minute period, authorities said, uprooting thousands of trees and flattened hundreds of tin and mud-built houses in the area, and snapping road and rail communication with affected villages.

The tornado, with a speed of over 70km per hour, was accompanied by hailstorm.

The railway connecting Dhaka to the country’s Chittagong port, some 242km southeast of capital Dhaka, and northeastern Sylhet, some 241km northeast of capital Dhaka, remained disrupted as trees fell on the tracks.

“The death toll is now 20, including women and children. At least 100 people are injured,” government district administrator Nur Mohammad said. He said local authorities have launched relief and rescue operations in the region.

“It was so powerful that it overturned dozens of motor vehicles and big trucks,” he said, adding that those who died were mostly hit by fallen trees or collapsed walls.

District police chief M Moniruzzaman said of the 100 people hospitalised, up to 12 people were in a critical condition.

“Many of the injured were rushed to hospitals in cities including the capital Dhaka,” he said.

An army medical team from Comilla cantonment has been sent to the affected areas.

The disaster management and relief ministry announced yesterday that 20,000 taka ($250) will be given to each family of dead person, and 5,000 taka ($62.5) to the family of the wounded.

Bangladesh is hit by powerful storms and tornadoes from March to mid-May just ahead of the four-month-long wet monsoon season, often killing scores and in some years hundreds of people in rural villages.