Cyclone Mocha devastates parts of Myanmar and Bangladesh

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The powerful cyclone “Mocha” made landfall on the western coast of Myanmar and Bangladesh with heavy rain and strong winds, causing severe destruction. The GDACS disaster warning system (Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System) had previously put the hurricane on red and predicted devastating winds of up to 259 kilometers per hour. According to local media reports, at least five people were killed in Myanmar on Sunday. Three died from falling trees, a few were buried in their home by a landslide.

“Mocha” had been gaining strength over the Bay of Bengal for days. The city of Sittwe and the state of Rakhine in Myanmar have been particularly hard hit. “We knew the storm would be strong, but it is even stronger than we expected,” said Khin Maung Lay, a resident of Sittwe, the German news agency. Houses are flooded and telephone and internet lines have collapsed. “We need help. Some old people get stuck.”

Chaos and violence in Myanmar

The extent of the damage was unclear. Videos circulated on the internet showed roofed houses and fallen trees. In Rakhine state alone, 100,000 people had been moved from the coast to safer areas. Armed groups from the region, which have been fighting the army for years, also helped.

Crisis-ravaged Myanmar has been engulfed in chaos and violence since a coup two years ago. The military junta oppresses the population and rules with an iron fist. More than a million people are already living as internally displaced persons, often in emergency shelters. Humanitarian organizations warned that the tropical storm could significantly worsen an already difficult situation for the people. “For a cyclone to hit an area where humanitarian needs are already so great is a nightmare scenario,” said Ramanathan Balakrishnan of the United Nations in Myanmar.

Sittwe is only about 180 kilometers southeast of the city of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where ‘Mokka’ was also raging. About a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar live there in makeshift shelters. More than 300,000 people had been evacuated in advance. Everyone else has been urged to stay away from the coast due to possible violent tidal waves.

As bad as “Nargis”?

Recently, however, the storm in Bangladesh seemed to have lost some momentum, says local weather forecaster Azizur Rahman. The risk is now significantly lower than in neighboring Myanmar, where the center of the cyclone has shifted.

Many in the region feared that “Mocha” could have such dire consequences as Cyclone “Nargis” did 15 years ago: on May 2-3, 2008, the tropical storm in Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta killed an estimated 140,000 people. . The havoc was enormous. (SDA)

Source: Blick