Cyclone Mala over the Bay of Bengal

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz; MODIS team; NASA, Posted on: Friday, 5 May 2006, 07:29 CDT Download full size image

This MODIS image from the Terra satellite, acquired on April 28, 2006, shows Cyclone Mala over the Bay of Bengal. In this image, you can see the coastline of India to the west, Bangladesh to the north, and Myanmar (formerly Burma) to the north-east.

The peninsula that looks like it is jutting into the cyclone is part of Myanmar. The edge of Thailand is just visible in the far right part of this image. The cyclone is expected in make landfall in Myanmar sometime on April 29th.

Mala, which means "garland of flowers in Bengali, is the first severe south-east Asian storm to be given a name. A similar, unnamed cyclone, that hit Bangaldesh in April 1991 claimed about 138,000 lives.

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