A southwesterly cyclone with winds of 100–150 mi. per hour struck the Ganges-Brahmaputra deltas in East Pakistan, raising the tides as much as 25 ft. and sweeping over thickly populated delta islands. The dead numbered in the hundreds of thousands in what was probably the worst natural disaster of the century.
In the national elections, Sheik Mujibur Rahman and his East Pakistani Awami League won an absolute majority of the 300 seats in the assembly. In West Pakistan, Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party(PPP) (Marxist) dominated with 82 seats. There could then be no further question that fundamental changes in the state would be undertaken, chiefly in favor of East Pakistan.
