confidence by insisting that the crisis was being caused almost solely by speculation and hoarding, but their propaganda failed to dispel the widespread belief that there was a shortage of rice. The provincial government never formally declared a state of famine, even though its Famine Code would have mandated a sizable increase in aid. In the early stages of the famine, the rationale for this was that the provincial government was expecting aid from the Government of India. It felt then its duty lay in maintaining confidence through propaganda that asserted that there was no shortage. After it became clear that aid from central government was not forthcoming, the provincial government felt they simply did not have the amount of food supplies that a declaration of famine would require them to distribute, while distributing more money might make inflation worse. When inter-provincial trade barriers were abolished on 18 May, prices temporarily fell in Calcutta, but soared in the neighbouring provinces of Bihar and Orissa when traders rushed to purchase stocks. The provincial government's attempts to locate and seize any hoarded stocks failed to find significant hoarding. In Bengal, prices were soon five to six times higher than they had been before April 1942. Free trade was abandoned in July 1943, and price controls were reinstated in August. Despite this, there were unofficial reports of rice being sold in late 1943 at roughly eight to ten times the prices of late 1942. Purchasing agents were sent out by the government to obtain rice, but their attempts largely failed. Prices remained high, and the black market was not brought under control. October 1942: Natural disasters Bengal was affected by a series of natural disasters late in 1942. The winter rice crop was afflicted by a severe outbreak of fungal brown spot disease, while, on 16–17 October a cyclone and three storm surges ravaged croplands, destroyed houses and killing thousands, at the same time dispersing high levels of fungal spores across the region and increasing the spread of the crop disease. The fungus reduced the crop yield even more than the cyclone. After describing the horrific conditions he had witnessed, the mycologist S.Y.Padmanabhan wrote that the outbreak was similar in impact to the potato blight that caused the Irish Great Famine: "Though administrative failures were immediately responsible for this human suffering, the principal cause of the short crop production of 1942 was the