Sea levels have risen due to a powerful cyclone moving ashore from the Bay of Bengal, inundating the coastal city of Sittwe in Myanmar. Winds reaching speeds of 210 kilometers per hour have ripped off tin roofs and toppled a telecommunications tower. Approximately 400,000 people in Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh were evacuated before Cyclone Mocha made landfall, as part of efforts by authorities and relief agencies to prevent casualties from one of the strongest storms to hit the region in years.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that large areas in Rakhine State and northwestern Myanmar, home to six million people, are in need of humanitarian assistance, with 1.2 million people displaced. The UN and local media stated that communications networks in Rakhine were disrupted following the cyclone's landfall.
Ramanathan Balakrishnan, the resident humanitarian coordinator, noted that the occurrence of "a cyclone in a region already facing dire humanitarian needs is a catastrophic scenario that will harm hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable people whose coping capacities have sharply dwindled due to successive crises."
Myanmar has been in turmoil since a military council seized power two years ago, with one resistance movement opposing the army on multiple fronts following a crackdown on protests. A military spokesperson did not respond to a phone call from Reuters for comment.
In Bangladesh, authorities evacuated around 300,000 people to safer areas ahead of the storm, while Rohingya refugees in the overcrowded camps in Cox's Bazar in the southeast huddled in crumbling shelters. Refugee Mohammad Aziz (21) said, "The winds are getting stronger. Our bamboo and water-resistant materials shelter provides us some protection. We pray for our safety."
Over a million Rohingya refugees, including half a million children, live in crowded camps susceptible to flooding and landslides after fleeing a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017. Hundreds of thousands of the Muslim Rohingya minority remain in Rakhine State, where many are packed into camps isolated from the rest of the population. Zaw Min Tun, a Rohingya resident of Sittwe, stated, "The state government relocated many Rohingya from the Sittwe camps to higher areas."
