The depression intensified as it moved slowly northward, and the India Meteorological Department upgraded it to a cyclonic storm the next day.

The cyclone made landfall on the East Pakistan coastline during the evening of 12 November, around the same time as the local high tide.

[15] The Pakistan Meteorological Department issued a report calling for "danger preparedness" in the vulnerable coastal regions during the day on 12 November.

Gordon Dunn, the director of the National Hurricane Center at the time, carried out a detailed study and submitted his report in 1961.

[18] The meteorological station in Chittagong, 95 km (59 mi) to the east of where the storm made landfall, recorded winds of 144 km/h (89 mph) before its anemometer was blown off at about 2200 UTC on 12 November.

[27]: 9  Ninety percent of marine fishermen in the region suffered heavy losses, including the destruction of 9,000 offshore fishing boats.

[27]: 11 The Bhola Cyclone would also lead to increased cholera and typhoid cases in the region due to the contamination of the water supply in the storm.

MV Mahajagmitra, a 5,500-ton freighter en route from Calcutta to Kuwait, was sunk by the storm on 12 November with the loss of all fifty people on board.

[27]: 5 The totals from the second survey were likely a considerable underestimate as several groups were not included— 100,000 migrant workers who were collecting the rice harvest, families who were completely wiped out by the storm, and those who had migrated out of the region in the intervening three months.

The days after the storm struck the coast, three Pakistanis gunboat and a hospital ship carrying medical personnel and supplies left Chittagong for the islands of Hatiya, Sandwip and Kutubdia.

The governor of East Pakistan, Vice Admiral S. M. Ahsan, denied charges that the armed forces had not acted quickly enough and said supplies were reaching all parts of the disaster area except for some small pockets.

[36] Awami League leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman described the destruction caused by the cyclone akin to a "Holocaust" and condemned the military junta's response as "criminal negligence".

[41] A pesticide company had to wait two days before it received permission for two of its crop dusters, which were already in the country, to carry out supply drops in the affected regions.

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 in 1971; equivalent to $341 in 2018) to rebuild, but that resources were scarce and he feared the survivors would "eat the cash".

[42] Due to the poor handling and the destructive aftermath of the Bhola Cyclone, leftist parties in both East and West Pakistan boycotted the 1970 Pakistani general election.

[44] The central government's handling of the relief efforts helped exacerbate the bitterness felt in East Pakistan, swelling the resistance movement there.

[46] 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.

[47] 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.

[46] CARE halted aid shipments to East Pakistan the week after the cyclone hit because of unwillingness to let the Pakistani central government handle distribution.

[51] The task force arrived off the East Pakistan coast on 24 November, and the 650 troops aboard the ships immediately began using landing craft to deliver supplies to offshore islands.

The mission returned to Singapore on 22 December, after bringing about $50,000 worth of medical supplies and fifteen tons of food for the victims of the storm.

[46] Mohammad Reza Pahlavi declared that the disaster was also an Iranian one and responded by sending two planeloads of supplies within a few days of the cyclone striking.

[56] UN Secretary-General U Thant made appeals for aid for the victims of the cyclone and the civil war in August, in two separate relief programs.

[58] The bank provided US$25 million of credit to help rebuild the East Pakistan economy and to construct protective shelters in the region.

[58] In 1971, ex-Beatle George Harrison and musician Ravi Shankar were inspired to organize The Concert for Bangladesh, in part from the Bhola cyclone, and from the civil war and genocide.

In December 1970, the League of Red Cross Societies drafted a plan for immediate use should a comparable event to the cyclone hit other "disaster prone countries".

A Red Cross official stated some of the relief workers sent to East Pakistan were poorly trained, and the organisation would compile a list of specialists.

The programme's objectives are to raise public awareness of the risks of cyclones and to provide training to emergency personnel in the coastal regions of Bangladesh.

[64] The Vortex by Scott Carney and Jason Miklian focused on how Yayhia Khan's failure to respond to the aftermath of Bhola cyclone which sparked the 1971 Bangladesh war.