But it is also clear that cyclone shelters save lives.
The island of Sandwip, for instance, has just 10 cyclone shelters, providing protection to 15,000 people even though 300,000 people live there.
In all, Bangladesh has 302 cyclone shelters, while 5,000 to 10,000 are needed.
The unreliability of the death toll makes it difficult to be precise, but cyclone shelters and an early-warning system probably saved many lives.
Ingham is one of a number of towns where a cyclone shelter is being built.
The reconstructed building was designed to double up as cyclone shelter to protect people from the community from storms in the future.
Much of the money was earmarked to be spent on constructing cyclone shelters and rebuilding housing.
These are cyclone shelters, built to accommodate villagers fleeing homes of wood and thatch.
However, 64 members of an emergency crew would remain behind in a cyclone shelter.
Although the resorts where we stayed were well prepared with cyclone shelter.