Highest death toll caused by a cyclone

In May 2017, a World Meteorological Organization's committee of experts consisting of climatologists, meteorologists, as well as a physician and a weather historian, announced the highest reported historical death tolls from tropical cyclones. It found that the Bangladesh (at time of incident, East Pakistan) Cyclone, also referred to as the ‘Great Bhola Cyclone’, of 12-13 November 1970 was the deadliest, having killed an estimated 300,000 people, mostly the result of a large storm surge overwhelming the islands and tidal flats along the shores of the Bay of Bengal.

A storm surge is the abnormal rise in seawater level during a storm, measured as the height of the water above the normal predicted astronomical tide.

Most of the deaths resulted from the large "storm surge" (tropical cyclone-generated coastal flooding), which raised the sea level by as much as 4 metres (13 feet).