- Friday, April 19, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Rescue operation was fully underway after Mocha, one of the most intense cyclones to develop in the Bay of Bengal since the early 1980s, made landfall near the Sittwe township in Myanmar’s Rakhine state on Sunday (14) wreaking havoc.
According to an Associated Press report, six people were killed in Myanmar though the overall impact of the natural disaster in one of Asia’s least developed nations was not fully clear.
Massive destruction of properties were witnessed and communications were cut off in the cyclone. The AP also reported rescuers coming to aid of around 1,000 people trapped by seawater more than three-and-half feet deep along the coast of western Myanmar on Monday (15).
More than 700 of about 10,000 people who took shelter in strong buildings on the highlands of Sittwe township in Rakhine such as pagodas, schools and monasteries were injured by strong winds, the report said citing a leader of the Rakhine Youths Philanthropic Association in Sittwe who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Seawater entered more than 10 low-lying wards near the shore as the cyclone made landfall on Sunday afternoon, he said, adding that immediate rescue operation was thwarted by the wind and storm.
“After 4 p.m. yesterday, the storm weakened a bit, but the water did not fall back. Most of them sat on the roof and at the high places of their houses the whole night. The wind blew all night,” the rescue group leader was quoted as saying by AP.
The deaths were reported by Myanmar’s media and rescue groups. A number of injuries were reported from neighbouring Bangladesh which was not hit directly by the devastating storm.
According to Myanmar’s military information office, Cyclone Mocha had damaged houses and electrical transformers in Sittwe, Kyaukpyu, and Gwa townships, the AP report added.
Roofs were torn off buildings on the Coco Islands, about 425 kilometers (264 miles) southwest of Yangon, the country’s largest city and former capital.
The storm largely spared the city of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, which initially had been in its predicted path.
Authorities had shifted hundreds of thousands of people before the cyclone moved towards Myanmar.
About a dozen people were injured on Saint Martin’s Island, Bangladesh’s leading daily Prothom Alo reported.
