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 	Nor'wester kills 20
Staff Correspondent, Rajshahi

At least 27 people were killed and some 500 others injured as a nor'wester battered 10 upazilas of Rajshahi and Natore districts yesterday, leaving a trail of devastation. 
The storm lasting 25 minutes from 2:30pm damaged houses and crops and uprooted trees and electric poles disrupting road communication and power supply in vast areas. 
Around 1 lakh people have become shelterless in the two districts, about 50,000 of them in Sadar upazila of Natore and in the district town. They are living under the open sky, official sources said. 
Of the dead, 15 were from Natore, eight from Rajshahi, and one each from Naogaon, Chapainawabganj, Habiganj and Nilphamari . 
They include Tanjeema, 8, of Bagmara and Chandu, 30, and Sajib of Puthia upazilas of Rajshahi, Sabur, 8, Zamila, 55, Amir Hossain, 35, Ibrahim, Zahangir, 22, Alam, 38, Kamal, 32 and Anwarul, 35, of Sadar upazila, Alpona, 14, Zarina, 13, Alam, 30, Banes Mollah of Naldanga, Bithi, 8, of Lalpur, Raihan, 3, Mistujan, 22, Ronela, 36 , and Milon, 16 ,of Bagatipara upazilas of Natore. 
The victims were killed in lightning during the storm, house collapse or hit by flying corrugated tins or felled trees. 
The injured were being rushed to different hospitals. 
The nor'wester hit Rajshahi city with a wind speed of 52 kms per hour, met officials here said. 
But they have no device to record wind speed in Natore and upazilas of Rajshahi, they added. 
Power supply went off as a number of electricity poles broke down. Power Development Board sources said power could not be restored until midnight. 
Road communication in Naldanga, Lalpur and Baraigram in Natore, and Taherpur, Durgapur and Mohinpur in Rajshahi remained suspended as fallen trees and electric poles blocked roads. This retarded quick shifting of the injured to hospitals, district administration sources said. 
In Natore, the worst hit was Sadar upazila, and some 32 unions out of 52 in the district were affected. Rescue operation was going on. 
"I never saw such a devastation in my life. Our rescue teams collected bodies also from under fallen trees", said Sadar Upazila Nirbahi Officer Aminul Islam. 
"We saw people were lying flat on the ground as their houses were destroyed and trees uprooted. Crops were also damaged," said a Natore journalist visiting the affected areas of Naldanga in the evening. 
Official sources in Rajshahi said standing crops and fruit including mango were badly damaged. 	 FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=Picture" 
Pillars of an under-construction multi-storey building at Dilkusha in the capital collapse during heavy showers yesterday afternoon. PHOTO: STAR