Rescue teams searched for survivors in eastern India and Bangladesh a day after the most powerful cyclone in over a decade devastated coastal villages, destroying mud houses, ripping out electricity poles and washing away bridges.
The full extent of the casualties and damage to property inflicted by Cyclone Amphan would only be known once communications were restored, officials said, but at least a dozen people died in the Indian state of West Bengal and eight in neighboring Bangladesh.
Most deaths were caused by trees uprooted by winds that gusted up to 185 km per hour (115 mph), and a storm surge of around five meters that inundated low-lying coastal areas when the cyclone barrelled in from the Bay of Bengal on Wednesday.