commented that the grants for building new houses were insufficient. The Observer regularly carried front-page stories with headlines like, "No Relief Coordination", while publishing government statements saying, "Relief operations are going smoothly." In January, the coldest period of the year in East Pakistan, the National Relief and Rehabilitation Committee, headed by the editor of Ittefaq, said thousands of survivors from the storm were "passing their days under [the] open sky". A spokesman said families who were made homeless by the cyclone were receiving up to 250 rupees (US$55 dollars in 1971; ) to rebuild, but that resources were scarce and he feared the survivors would "eat the cash". Political consequences The Awami League, headed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, swept to a landslide victory in the 1970 Pakistani general election, in part because of dissatisfaction over failure of the relief efforts by the central government. The elections for nine national assembly and eighteen provincial assembly seats had to be postponed until January 18 as a result of the storm. The central government's handling of the relief efforts helped exacerbate the bitterness felt in East Pakistan, swelling the resistance movement there. Funds only slowly got through, and transport was slow in bringing supplies to the devastated regions. As tensions increased in March 1971, foreign personnel evacuated because of fears of violence. The situation deteriorated further and evolved into civil war and genocide. The conflict widened into the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 in December and concluded with the founding of Bangladesh. This would be one of the first times that a natural event helped to trigger a civil war. International response India became one of the first nations to offer aid to Pakistan, despite the generally poor relations between the two countries, and by the end of November had pledged US$1.3 million (US$8.7 million in 2020 dollars) of assistance for the relief efforts. The Pakistani central government refused to allow the Indians to send supplies into East Pakistan by air, forcing them to be transported slowly by road instead. The Indian government also said that the Pakistanis refused an offer of military aircraft, helicopters and boats from West Bengal to assist in the relief operation. U.S. President Richard Nixon allocated a $10 million ($ million in ) grant to provide food and other essential relief to the survivors of the storm, and the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan pledged that he would "assist the