KYAUKTAW (Myanmar) — Cyclone Mocha crashed through Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh on Sunday (May 14), sparing sprawling refugee camps but bringing a storm surge to swathes of western Myanmar where communications were largely cut off.
Mocha made landfall between Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh and Myanmar's Sittwe packing winds of up to 195km per hour, in the biggest storm to hit the Bay of Bengal in over a decade.
In Teknaf in Bangladesh volunteers emerged to remove fallen trees and other obstacles from the roads, an AFP correspondent said. Streets in the town of around 150,000 people were turned into rivers as the storm surged ashore, tearing roofs from buildings and downing power lines.The wind ripped apart homes made of tarpaulin and bamboo at one camp for displaced Rohingya at Kyaukphyu in Myanmar's Rakhine state."We are now going to check whether sea water is increasing to our place... if the seawater rises, our camp can be flooded," he said.
Thousands left Sittwe on Saturday, packing into trucks, cars and tuk-tuks and heading for higher ground inland as meteorologists warned of a storm surge of up to 3.5m. In Bangladesh, authorities have banned Rohingya refugees from constructing concrete homes, fearing it may encourage them to settle permanently rather than return to Myanmar, which they fled five years ago following a brutal military crackdown.
Sidr hit Bangladesh's southern coast in November 2007, killing more than 3,000 people and causing billions of dollars in damage.
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