Cyclone Mocha weakens after five deaths as it passes through Myanmar

Cyclone Mocha killed five people as it passed through western Burma in the Bay of Bengal, cutting off tens of thousands of people in the port city of Sittwe for a few hours.

Communications with the tens of thousands of residents of the Burmese port city of Sittwe gradually resumed on Monday after the cyclone swept through the west of the country.

Mocha made landfall on Sunday between the cities of Cox’s Bazar (in Bangladesh) and Sittwe (Burma) with winds of up to 195 kilometers per hour.making it the largest storm to hit the gulf in more than a decade.

By late Sunday evening, the storm was largely over.

In the end, as feared, it did not do much damage to the huge refugee camps that are home to a million Rohingyas in Bangladesh. The authorities of that country have not registered any victims.

“Some residents were injured” by the storm, and 864 homes and 14 hospitals or clinics were damaged in the country, he said in a statement.

Communications with the town of Sittwe, which bore the brunt of the cyclone, gradually resumed, according to cyclone tracking websites.

Hundreds of refugees in high-altitude areas returned to the city along a road lined with trees, poles and power lines, according to AFP correspondents.

A military checkpoint some 10km from Sittwe, home to some 150,000 people, blocked access to cars and trucks, forcing people to continue on motorcycles or on foot.

At least five people were killed in the town and 25 were injured, Ko Lin Lin, a local rescue worker, told AFP, although it is not known if any of those casualties were included in the junta’s tally.

Communication problems

“I was in a Buddhist monastery when the storm came,” one resident told AFP. “The monks’ prayer room and dining hall collapsed.”

The cyclone caused a storm surge of several meters and violent winds that brought down a communications tower in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, according to images posted on social media.

The media linked to the junta indicated that hundreds of mobile phone masts were no longer operational.

Communications problems make it impossible to assess the damage in Rakhine, but “the initial information coming in points to significant damage,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Sunday.

In Bangladesh, where authorities have evacuated 750,000 people, Kamrul Hasan, the minister’s official, said the cyclone did not cause “major damage” and that damage in Rohingya camps is minimal.

“About 300 houses have been destroyed by the cyclone,” Shamsud Douza, Bangladesh’s deputy refugee commissioner, told AFP.

rebuild camps

This official confirms that the authorities are currently distributing bamboo, tarpaulins and other materials so that the affected Rohingyas can rebuild their homes.

The risk of landslides in the camps is low “due to low rainfall”.

“The skies cleared. Cyclone Mocha is the most powerful storm to hit Bangladesh since Cyclone Sidr,” Azizur Rahman, director of Bangladesh’s meteorological department, told AFP.

By November 2007, Sidr had devastated southwest Bangladesh, resulting in more than 3,000 deaths and billions of dollars in damage.

Improved weather forecasts in recent years and more effective evacuations have dramatically reduced cyclone deaths.

Scientists warned that these storms are becoming more powerful in certain parts of the world due to climate change.