Super cyclone Mocha batters Myanmar and Bangladesh coasts, claims 3 lives

Monday, May 15, 2023

Cyclone Mocha, one of the most powerful storms in the current year, has crashed ashore in Myanmar leaving relief workers struggling to assess the extent of the damage because the storm caused major disruption to communications.

With winds of up to 250 kmph (155 miles per hour), Mocha struck between Myanmar’s Sittwe and Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, the home to nearly one million mostly Muslim Rohingya refugees who were forced out of Myanmar in a 2017 military crackdown.

At least three deaths were reported in Myanmar. A rescue team said on social media that they had recovered the bodies of a couple who were buried when a landslide hit their house in Tachileik township.

Local media reported a man was crushed to death when a banyan tree fell on him in Pyin Oo Lwin township in the central Mandalay region.

The storm crossed the coast of northwestern Rakhine State, south of the Bangladesh border on Sunday at about 1:30pm (07:00 GMT), uprooting trees, bringing down pylons and cables, and creating a tidal surge that inundated streets in the low-lying region.

Myanmar’s military information office said the storm had damaged houses, electrical transformers, cell phone towers, boats and lampposts in Sittwe, Kyaukpyu, and Gwa townships.

It said roofs were torn off buildings on the Coco Islands.

The collapse of a communication tower also cut out internet and phone services, complicating damage assessment efforts.

The UN was deploying emergency teams because many people had been displaced from their homes they were living in shelters that were not sturdy.

The military and the United League of Arakan (ULA), the political wing of the ethnic Arakan Army, each claim administrative control in Rakhine state, which could further hamper relief efforts.

A large number of structures in Sittwe and Kyauktaw had been damaged, and schools and monasteries where people had been sheltering were left without roofs.

More than 4,000 of Sittwe’s 300,000 residents were evacuated to other cities, and more than 20,000 people took shelter in sturdy buildings such as monasteries, pagodas and schools located on the city’s highlands, said Tin Nyein Oo, who is volunteering in the town’s shelters.

A major Myanmar port city remained cut off from contact on Monday after a cyclone tore through the west of the country. The road to Sittwe was littered with trees, pylons and power cables.

Rescuers early Monday evacuated about 1,000 people trapped by seawater 3.6 meters (12 feet ) deep along western Myanmar’s coast because of cyclone Mocha.

Strong winds injured more than 700 of about 20,000 people who were sheltering in sturdier buildings at Sittwe, Myanmar.

The military in Myanmar has imposed internet shutdowns across parts of the country, including some areas in Rakhine and neighbouring Chin state.

The strong storm flooded Rakhine’s capital of Sittwe and took down at least one communications tower.

In remote and hilly Chin, which has previously seen heavy fighting between the junta and the resistance, the areas the storm swept through is under a communications blackout since the coup.

According to the United Nations Development Programme’s consultant, it was hard to understand the scale of destruction because of ruptured communications in Rakhine.

« Back to Page

• Oman Air Ends Services to Bangladesh and Pakistan, Reduces Flights to India

• Transformative border road project awaits travellers in Bangladesh

• Sinthan Top shines as Kashmir’s exclusive winter wonderland

• 5.6 magnitude earthquake shakes Bangladesh

• In Bangladesh, tourism awaits a solid boost from long weekends