Believed to be dead after he had gone missing four years ago, a fish merchant from Bangladesh was reunited with his family even as Cyclone Remal was poised to destroy thousands of others' lives. While evacuating a district in West Bengal to shelters to prepare for the coming storm, a civil defence worker, Anup Sasmal, noticed a man who was sitting alone at an embankment, talking quietly to himself incoherently. According to media reports, authorities recognised that the man was a Bangladeshi who had somehow become displaced. They contacted the West Bengal Radio Club, which has expertise in assisting in missing persons cases. The club had already sent many of its members to Sagar Island to assist with emergency communications during the cyclone but the hams remaining reached out to amateur radio operators in Bangladesh. Radio operators there were able to locate the man's village and ultimately his family by providing a physical description and other details. The man and his family were immediately reunited via an emotional video call and arrangements were made to have him return home after the storm. It is not known how or how long ago the Bangladeshi national ended up across the border from his home country or what happened to him in the years in between.

Source - ARNewsline