"We had no idea that the cyclone was coming," says Tahmina Khatun, 35, from Poschim Padma, a small fishing village in southern Bangladesh. "It was only when I stepped outside and saw the wall of water approaching that I realised we were in trouble. I started screaming to my neighbours to get out and save themselves."

Tahmina lost her two sons, her mother and brother, as well as her home, when cyclone Sidr struck Bangladesh on the evening of November 15. Her tragic story echoes the loss and suffering endured by many others in her village where 500 people died and 500 are still missing.

Everyone I speak to has lost a loved one in the disaster - in addition to their home and all their belongings. Ten days on, the sense of shock is palpable. Most people have never experienced anything on this scale before and it's hard for them to comprehend. Some still don't understand what has happened to them.

Perched on the banks of the Baleshwar River, flanked by mangrove swamps, Poschim Padma is in an exceptionally vulnerable position. Fishing is the chief source of income, so villagers build their homes right at the water's edge, leaving them completely exposed in this flood-prone region.

It was the absence of simple disaster preparedness measures in Poschim Padma that cost the community dearly. The nearest Bangladesh Red Crescent cyclone shelters were several kilometres away. But, crucially, poor communication meant early warnings did not reach the village. The impact in terms of loss of life and livelihoods was devastating.

In stark contrast, the benefits of disaster preparedness programmes are clear to see in Khajura, another coastal village hit by the cyclone. Here, 700 people were evacuated to a cyclone shelter 1 kilometre away. Within moments of receiving the "red alert", Red Crescent volunteers were broadcasting early warning signals using a megaphone and the tannoy at the mosque. They started evacuating villagers, giving priority to the elderly and the sick.

Admittedly, the cyclone shelter is in dire need of maintenance and the conditions were cramped. "Nobody slept that night," recalls one man. "The wind and rain blew inside and when the water came it reached the second floor - I thought we would be washed away."

SHELTERS SAVE LIVES

Despite the discomfort, once the scale of devastation became apparent, the importance of the shelter and its effectiveness in saving lives was obvious.

Nurjahan Begum, 60, who over the years has lost 13 members of her family and her husband to natural disasters, is under no illusions. "I know that the cyclone shelter saved us because the next day, once I saw that my daughter's home had been completely destroyed, I knew for sure we would have died if we had not got to the shelter," she says.

For several years, the Bangladesh Red Crescent Community Disaster Preparedness Committee has been educating people in Khajura about natural disasters, disseminating information about early warning systems and helping them to be better prepared. The aim is to motivate people to take appropriate action in emergencies, and the effort has undoubtedly saved lives.

Tragically, four children died when floodwaters ripped them from the hands of their mother while making their way to the shelter. Yet many more would have perished, as in Poschim Padma, without the disaster preparedness measures that have been put in place.

Risk reduction techniques can also help save homes, livelihoods and ultimately money in the form of the relief needed after a disaster. And they don't need to involve large-scale programmes and funding to reap big rewards. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) estimates that for every $1 spent on disaster risk reduction, between $2 and $10 can be saved on the costs of relief and recovery.

PREPAREDNESS PAYS OFF

Field assessment teams have found that houses built in wooded areas sustained far less damage than those built just outside the forest, and those unprotected by trees have been completely destroyed.

This information is being passed onto disaster preparedness teams who are encouraging people to plant trees around their homes to mitigate the impact of future disasters. On average, the cost of planting trees is a quarter of the cost of rebuilding a home from scratch.

As we enter the rehabilitation phase in Bangladesh, the Red Cross will be distributing materials such as tools, bamboo and corrugated iron so that people can rebuild their own homes.

A key part of the process is educating people in cyclone-resistant construction; for example, building roofs with four sides that can better withstand high winds, and picking plots on raised ground less likely to be reached by floodwater.

In a country that experiences at least one natural disaster a year on average, Bangladesh's disaster preparedness programmes are proving time and time again to be effective in saving lives.

In 1991, a cyclone of the same strength as Sidr killed approximately 140,000 in comparison to the 3,000 people killed this year. Yet more investment is crucial if death tolls are to decrease further.

While placing a cost on a life is impossible, over time, risk reduction measures in these disaster-prone regions will help ease the massive impact on fragile economies and relieve the financial burden of disaster relief.

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