Cornelia Rohde

Catalyst: in the Wake of the Great Bhola Cyclone Cornelia Rohde

The smell came first, then the tops of coconut palms, floating on tiny stalks above the placid Bay--at last the low mud bank with its horrendous burden of decaying bodies. I had to run the dinghy down the coast for over a mile before I could find a spot to land without stepping on one of the luckless victims of the cyclone. I scrambled up the slippery bank, nearly retching, and stood on a dirt mound that only last week had been a home. There before me was a beautiful, golden, flattened and utterly desolate land. --Jon Rohde's account of landing on Manpura, November 23, 1970

Catalyst tells the story of the most devastating cyclone in history, striking one of the most overpopulated and defenseless places on earth. On November 12, 1970, a full moon and high tide coincided to create a massive storm that built up a twenty-foot high wall of water surging with deadly force across the low-lying islands in the Bay of Bengal. The islanders, along with their livestock, boats, possessions and any buildings not made of concrete, were flung into the raging wind and sea. Only the strongest survived by clinging for hours to the tops of palm trees. With an estimated half a million deaths, the Great Bhola Cyclone stands as the worst in recorded history. Drawing on original field notes, archival research, recollections of participants, interviews and memoirs, Catalyst tells the true story of a group of young friends' spontaneous response to this unprecedented natural disaster, and to the civil war following in its wake that led to the new nation of Bangladesh. A compelling tale about choices that define us and shape our lives, it illustrates how times of great calamity and confusion can become a cartography of human purpose.