Six d e a d as Cyclone Mocha hits western Myanmar

Powerful Cyclone Mocha made landfall in western Myanmar on Sunday, killing six people and bringing down trees, reported Radio Free Asia citing residents, as humanitarian agencies warned of a severe impact on “hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people.”

The cyclone had earlier on Sunday intensified to a Category Five storm, with wind speeds reaching as high as 220 kilometers per hour, according to the Myanmar Department of Meteorology and Hydrology.

The UN and its humanitarian partners said they are preparing a “scaled-up cyclone response.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Myanmar said before the cyclone, an estimated six million people were “already in humanitarian need” in western Myanmar's Rakhine state, and the regions of Chin, Magway and Sagaing, where Mocha is expected to hit.

“Collectively, these states in the country's west host 1.2 million displaced people, many of whom are fleeing conflict and are living in the open without proper shelter,” said OCHA, warning of “a nightmare scenario.”

Meanwhile, the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System estimated the storm could affect up to 2 million people.

Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, said that Mocha is one of the biggest storms that has ever occurred in the Bay of Bengal.

“It is stronger than Nargis,” Koll said, referring to the cyclone that left nearly 140,000 people dead and missing in 2008.

Cyclone Mocha formed on Thursday, causing heavy rains and a coastal surge in Rakhine state starting on Friday.

“Cyclone frequency is more or less the same in the Bay of Bengal – but once they form, they are intensifying quickly,” the scientist said. “This is in response to warmer oceans under climate change.”

Mocha started crossing the Rakhine coast in southwestern Myanmar on Sunday afternoon.

In Tachileik city in northeastern Shan state, a married couple were buried in their house in a landslide caused by heavy rains on Sunday morning, according to the Hla Moe Tachilek Social Assistance Association.

Two people in Rakhine state, one man in the Irrawaddy region and another man in the Mandalay region were killed by falling trees.

In Sittwe, Rakhine state's capital, a telecom tower collapsed under high winds and mobile phone signals are down. Residents have been sharing images of damaged houses and roads on social media.

The winds were still ravaging Sittwe as of Sunday afternoon and local authorities warned its 150,000 inhabitants to stay indoors.

Hundreds of Sittwe's residents were already evacuated to the inland town of Mrauk-U on Saturday.

The Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine rebel group, said more than 10,000 people had been relocated from 21 villages on the coast and in low-lying areas in the state since Thursday.

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 at least 45 people.

In 2008, more than 135,000 people were killed when Cyclone Nargis hit the country's Irrawaddy Delta.

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