At Least 3 Killed, Houses Damaged As Cyclone Mocha Wrecks Havoc In Myanmar, Spares Refugee Camps In Bangladesh

Myanmar’s military information office said the storm damaged homes, electricity infrastructure, mobile phone masts, boats, and lampposts in Sittwe, Kyaukpyu, and Gwa townships

New Delhi: At least three people were killed and several buildings and infrastructures were damaged after cyclone Mocha made landfall in Myanmar's Rakhine region on Sunday with wind speeds of up to 130 mph (209 km/h), the country’s meteorological department said, reported Associated Press.

The military information office of Myanmar said that the storm damaged homes, electricity infrastructure, mobile phone masts, boats, and lampposts in Sittwe, Kyaukpyu, and Gwa townships, and also tore roofs off sports facilities on the Coco Islands, about 260 miles (418km) south-west of the country’s largest city, Yangon.

AP citing Rakhine-based media reported that streets and the basements of houses in Sittwe’s low-lying areas had been flooded and much of the area is cut off from phone and internet services. Videos that were collected by local media before communications were cut off show deep water racing through streets while wind lashes trees and pulls boards off roofs. 

Tin Nyein Oo, a volunteer working in Sittwe's shelters, told AP that more than 4,000 of Sittwe’s 300,000 residents were evacuated to other cities, and more than 20,000 people were sheltering in monasteries, pagodas, and schools on higher ground in the city.

Myanmar state television reported that the military government was preparing to send food, medicine, and medical personnel to the storm-hit area. After battering Rakhine, the cyclone weakened and was forecast to hit the north-western state of Chin and the central regions on Monday.

However, Mocha spared a densely-populated cluster of refugee camps in low-lying neighbouring Bangladesh.

Authorities in the Bangladeshi city of Cox’s Bazar, which lies in the storm’s predicted path, said they had evacuated about 1.27 million people. By early afternoon, however, it appeared the storm would mostly miss the country as it veered east, according to Azizur Rahman, the director of the country’s meteorological department.

“The level of risk has reduced to a great extent in Bangladesh,” he told reporters, according to AP.

In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar with a storm surge that devastated populated areas around the Irrawaddy River Delta. At least 138,000 people died and tens of thousands of homes and other buildings were washed away.