As the super cyclone Amphan is inching closer, Bangladesh has shifted at least 1.4 million people in the coastal areas in storm shelters on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the country reported its first death due to the cyclone even as the landfall begins, which is a 4-hour-long process.  It has now weakened into an “extremely severe” cyclonic storm.

A Bangladesh Red Crescent volunteer drowned Wednesday when a boat capsized while evacuating villagers in the path of Cyclone Amphan, the organisation said.

“There were four of them on the boat when it sank,” Nurul Islam Khan, director of the Cyclone Preparedness Programme of the Bangladesh Red Crescent,  news agency AFP was quoted as saying.

Cyclone Amphan is expected make a landfall somewhere between India’s West Bengal’s Digha and Hatya Island in Bangladesh at a minimum speed of 155-165 km/hour and a maximum of 185 km/hour.

Kazi Tasmin Ara Ajmiri, Deputy Secretary, National Disaster Response Coordination Centre said that the authorities are continuing to shift the local people to the shelters.

“Some people who came to the centres on Tuesday left for home as the storm has not hit the coast yet; they are being brought back to the shelters,” said Ajmiri.

“There are 1,364,000 people in the shelters as of 9 am on Wednesday,” said the Deputy Secretary.

The Bangladesh Meteorological Department elevated the storm alert to great danger signal 9 for Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar ports as the cyclone was just 345 km from the country’s coastline,  reported bdnews24.

Mongla and Payra ports have hoisted the great danger signal number 10.

Met office says that the storm is expected to cut its path through the Bangladesh-West Bengal coast near the Sundarbans by Wednesday evening.

Last year, 1.8 million people were taken to the shelters ahead of cyclone Fani while another 2.2 million were moved to safety from the imminent dangers of cyclone Bulbul.

In Jhalakathi, almost 10,000 riverside inhabitants of Sugandha Char, Rajapur, Bishkhali and Nalchhiti have been evacuated to cyclone shelters.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Md Kamrul Islam said that Bagerhat, a coastal district, had more than 90,000 of its residents including children, senior citizens and specially-abled persons moved to 977 cyclone shelters as of Wednesday morning.

About 12,000 volunteers are working at the shelters where special emphasis is being placed on maintaining social distancing amid the coronavirus crisis.

The people staying at the shelter homes have been supplied with food, safe drinking water and candles to the local authorities and the Red Crescent Society.

“Around 13,000 livestock have also been moved to safety as the storm approaches the coastline,” said the additional deputy commissioner.

According to US space agency NASA, Amphan is the equivalent of a Category-5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

“It was designated Tropical Cyclone 01B. Overnight, it quickly strengthened to hurricane force,” NASA has said.