Cyclone Mocha destroys refugee camps in Myanmar and Bangladesh Massive explosion in Ukraine – Russia loses ground

Category 5 cyclone Mocha wreaked havoc in parts of Myanmar and Bangladesh.

However, the full extent of the damage is only slowly becoming apparent as most communication links have collapsed. “We are now constantly receiving new reports that the destruction is increasing,” said aid organization Oxfam on Monday.

The tropical cyclone hit the west coast of the two neighboring countries on Sunday with wind speeds of more than 250 kilometers per hour. It was the strongest cyclone to hit the region in more than a decade.

Photos and videos from the affected areas showed many roofed houses and huts. There was rubble everywhere. Heavy rainfall and storm surges also caused severe flooding. Countless beautiful pagodas in Myanmar were flooded. Many trees and power poles have also snapped.

“Some towns look like lakes, some villages have no houses left,” said Min Thein, a resident of the hard-hit Rakhine state on the west coast of former Burma.

Hundreds of thousands of people had already been brought to safety in both countries as a precaution. This apparently saved many lives: according to Oxfam, at least eight people died in Myanmar, in Bangladesh there were initially no reports of casualties.

Crisis-ravaged Myanmar has been engulfed in chaos and violence since a military coup two years ago. The ruling junta suppresses all resistance with an iron fist and repeatedly launches airstrikes against its own population. More than a million people already live as internally displaced persons in their own countries, often in makeshift camps.

Rajan Khosla, director of Oxfam in Myanmar, said the storm had a “huge impact” on the lives of displaced people. “We call on the international community to provide the necessary resources to enable them to live with dignity.”

Even before the cyclone, an estimated six million people were in humanitarian need in the cyclone-affected states (Rakhine, Chin, Magway and Sagaing). Oxfam stressed that the need for basic necessities such as shelter, clean water and sanitation will only increase.

The town of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh was also hit. About a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar live there in the world’s largest concentration of refugee camps, mostly in homes made of bamboo and plastic sheeting. Mizanur Rahman, head of the Rohingya authority in Bangladesh, said about 2,500 of these shelters have been completely or partially destroyed.

Many in the region had feared that “Mocha” could have the same dire consequences as Cyclone “Nargis” 15 years ago: In May 2008, the tropical storm in Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta killed nearly 140,000 people, according to estimates. (oee/sda/dpa)