Cyclone Mocha Wreaks Havoc in Myanmar’s Northern Rakhine

By The Irrawaddy 14 Might 2023

Extraordinarily highly effective Cyclone Mocha made landfall in northern Rakhine State close to the Bangladeshi border on Sunday, bringing torrential rains and gusts of wind sturdy sufficient to fell telecommunications towers, uproot timber and trigger flash floods, amongst different types of havoc.

The cyclone with a most wind pace of 259 km per hour, equal to a Class 5 hurricane, hit the state capital Sittwe on Myanmar’s western coast on Sunday morning. It’s the strongest cyclone to hit Myanmar in additional than a decade.

Residents reported heavy rains and robust winds that uprooted timber and blew off roofs.

“There are howling winds and pounding rains. I really feel every thing round me is trembling and rumbling,” a Sittwe resident advised The Irrawaddy.

Earlier than the web connection within the space was reduce off by the storm, some residents took to Fb, Myanmar’s favourite social media, to share photos of uprooted huge timber, blown away roofs, and abandoned and rain-drenched thoroughfares in Sittwe. Reviews of comparable havoc wreaked by the storm got here in from different cities like Gwa and Kyaukphyu.

Residents additionally reported flash floods attributable to storm surges of their neighborhoods. Sittwe is open to the Bay of Bengal.

Cell phone connection was misplaced within the northern a part of the state within the afternoon after telecommunications masts had been crippled by sturdy winds, leaving Sittwe, Kyauktaw, Maungdaw, Minbya and different areas experiencing communication blackouts. MEGA Web, a fiber web service supplier in Rakhine, introduced on its Fb web page that its service has been severed because of the storm.

As of Sunday afternoon, the complete extent of the devastation attributable to the storm within the state capital and close by areas was not but clear. The attention of the storm crossed Sittwe and close by areas on Sunday afternoon and meteorologists warned of potential additional extreme climate, which usually follows the crossing of the attention. Myanmar’s Meteorology and Hydrology Division mentioned the cyclone was shifting into the nation’s north and northeast, the place it threatens to do extra harm in neighboring Chin State and Magwe and Sagaging areas—strongholds of Myanmar’s anti-regime resistance which have already been devastated by the scorched earth coverage applied by the Myanmar navy regime for the reason that 2021 coup. The International Catastrophe Alert and Coordination System estimated the storm may have an effect on as much as 2 million individuals.

When Mocha made landfall on Sunday, the state capital Sittwe was practically abandoned as greater than half of  the city’s over 310,000 residents had been evacuated to close by cities on increased floor, in keeping with the city’s Common Administration Division.

In Teknaf in Bangladesh, excessive winds uprooted timber, introduced site visitors to a halt and despatched residents operating for canopy as Mocha, packing winds of as much as 195 km (120 miles) per hour, hit the coast between Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, house to just about a million Rohingya refugees, and Myanmar’s Sittwe, in keeping with AFP.

Bangladeshi authorities earlier moved 190,000 individuals in Cox’s Bazar and practically 100,000 in Chittagong to security, the information company reported, citing divisional commissioner Aminur Rahman.

Cyclone Mocha is the strongest storm to hit Myanmar since 2010’s Cyclone Giri, which had sustained winds of 230 km per hour and killed no less than 45 individuals.

In 2008, greater than 135,000 individuals had been killed when Cyclone Nargis hit the nation’s Irrawaddy Delta.

Subjects: Bangladesh, coast, communication, Cyclone Mocha, harm, evacuations, Web, landfall, Myanmar, Pure Disasters, rain, Rakhine, Refugees, roofs, Sittwe, storm surge, Timber, Climate, wind