The death toll from a major hurricane in eastern India and Bangladesh in early May rose to 77 on Monday as anger over water and energy cuts continued to increase.
Vani, the first summer cyclone to hit the Bay of Bengal 43 years ago, arrived on land to Odysha on May 3 with winds of up to 200 kilometers per hour.
Half a million homes were damaged by the wind, hundreds of thousands of trees raised, electricity, communications and water cut off millions of people in one of India´s poorest states.
The death toll in India, which has been 41 in the past, with new casualties in the areas of Buri and Khorda Sunday. Thirteen people were killed in Bangladesh by Hurricane Fannie.
"The death toll has risen to 64," an official at the emergency operations center told AFP, adding that most of the deaths were recorded 39 in Puri.
At first, the United Nations praised India for successfully moving some 1.2 million people into safe areas before the hurricane arrived, in what Odysha Prime Minister Navin Patnik called "the largest process of human eviction in history."
But this praise quickly turned into anger by many residents for what they saw as slow pace of reconstruction and indifference by the authorities.
Angry survivors took to the streets to protest the slow pace of relief operations and rising prices for basic foodstuffs and water.
On Sunday, protesters blocked roads leading to Obasancha, the capital of Odesha state, said the lack of coordination between the various government agencies was worsening their plight.
We can not afford to sleep, we have to buy water at high prices, "a demonstrator told the Press Trust of India news agency.
Another demonstrator said the government failed to provide "essentials such as water and electricity, even though it promised to return energy supplies by Sunday."
Patnaik said the assessment of the damaged houses would begin on May 15 and pledged financial assistance would be provided to affected families.
Cyclones usually hit the region between October and November. Fannie was the third cyclone to hit the Bay of Bengal during the summer 150 years ago.
In 1999, the same state suffered a major hurricane that killed some 10,000 people.
