Thousands of people hunkered down Sunday in monasteries, pagodas and schools, seeking shelter from a powerful storm that slammed into the coast of Myanmar, tearing roofs off buildings and killing at least three people.
The center of Cyclone Mocha made landfall Sunday afternoon in Myanmar’s Rakhine state near Sittwe township wind speeds up to 130 miles per hour, Myanmar’s Meteorological Department said. The storm previously passed over Bangladesh’s Saint Martin’s Island, causing damage and injuring people, but turned away from the country’s shores before landfall.
Rakhine-based media reported that streets were flooded, trapping people in low-lying areas in their homes as worried relatives outside the township appealed for rescue. Titon Mitra, the U.N. Development Program representative in Myanmar, tweeted: “Mocha has made landfall. 2m people at risk. Damage and losses are expected to be extensive. We are ready to respond and will need unhindered access to all affected communities.”
Authorities in the Bangladeshi city of Cox’s Bazar, which lay in the storm’s predicted path, said earlier that they had evacuated hundreds of thousands of people, but by early afternoon it appeared that the storm would mostly miss the country as it veered east, said Azizur Rahman, director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department in Dhaka.
In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar with a storm surge that devastated populated areas around the Irrawaddy River Delta. At least 138,000 people died and tens of thousands of homes and other buildings were washed away.
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