DHAKA - For Noorjahan Begam the devastating effects of cyclones hold harrowing personal memories. Her husband, Abul Hossain, a fisherman, was lost at sea when his boat was swept up and shattered in the storm.
The death was not the only loss Noorjahan has suffered in the calamitythat strikes Bangladesh with brutal regularity.
An earlier cyclone had claimed the lives of her three sisters among 22 members of her extended family.
"It was a bitter experience," she says. "And now I am left alone in this world."
In this deeply conservative Muslim society it is the women who run the household. Yet at times of danger many are not allowed to leave the house without their husband's permission. Sometimes this is not forthcoming because the men are not around to grant that permission - they are away working as itinerant labourers or seeking jobs in other towns.
The result is deaths and injuries which could have been prevented. Now the British Red Cross and their Swedish and German counterparts have established a project aimed at empowering women to make these decisions affecting life and death.
Ali Asgar, the project's chief adviser, says: "Women are severely marginalised. In the coastal areas people are less aware of the problems and this is the case with women in particular, so they do not leave their homes much. The head of the family is a male and he wants to take full responsibility. But this means the women are left disempowered and extremely vulnerable."
With a population of 142 million, Bangladesh is the most densely populated country in the world.
