DHAKA — Storm surges whipped up by a robust cyclone transferring inland from the Bay of Bengal inundated the Myanmar port metropolis of Sittwe on Saturday, with winds of as much as 210 kph (130 mph) ripping away tin roofs and bringing down a communications tower.
Some 400,000 folks have been evacuated in Myanmar and low-lying neighboring Bangladesh forward of Cyclone Mocha making landfall, as authorities and help companies scrambled to avert heavy casualties from one of many strongest storms to hit the area lately.
Parts of Sittwe, the capital of Myanmar’s Rakhine state, have been flooded and the bottom flooring of a number of buildings have been underneath water, a video posted on social media by a witness within the metropolis confirmed.
Across Rakhine state and the north west of the nation about 6 million folks have been already in want of humanitarian help whereas 1.2 million have been displaced, in keeping with the UN humanitarian workplace (OCHA).
Communication networks in Rakhine had been disrupted after the cyclone made landfall, the UN and native media mentioned.
“For a cyclone to hit an area where there is already such deep humanitarian need is a nightmare scenario, impacting hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people whose coping capacity has been severely eroded by successive crises,” UN resident coordinator Ramanathan Balakrishnan mentioned.
Myanmar has been plunged into chaos since a junta seized energy two years in the past. After a crackdown on protests, a resistance motion is preventing the army on numerous fronts.
A junta spokesperson didn’t instantly reply a phone name from Reuters to hunt remark.
Refugees
In Bangladesh, the place authorities moved round 300,000 folks to safer areas earlier than the storm hit, Rohingya refugees inside densely populated camps within the Cox’s Bazar within the south east of the nation hunkered down inside their ramshackle houses.
“The winds are getting stronger,” mentioned refugee Mohammed Aziz, 21. “Our shelter, made of bamboo and tarpaulin, offers little protection. We’re praying to Allah to save us.”
More than one million Rohingya refugees—half one million kids amongst them— stay in sprawling camps vulnerable to flooding and landslides after having fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.
Hundreds of 1000’s of the Muslim Rohingya minority stay in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, the place many are confined to camps separated from the remainder of the inhabitants.
“The state government has moved many Rohingya from Sittwe camps to higher grounds area,” Zaw Min Tun, a Rohingya resident in Sittwe mentioned, including that the evacuation occurred with none warning.
“They also didn’t provide any food to them, so people are starving.” — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
