The India Meteorological Department said early Monday that the Severe Cyclonic Storm "Mocha" over Myanmar weakened into a Cyclonic Storm at 2:30 am on May 15. Cyclone Mocha made landfall along the coasts of Bangladesh and Myanmar on Sunday, bringing heavy rains and storm.

Meanwhile, news agency Associated Press reported that more than 700 people were injured following strong winds in the Myanmar port city of Sittwe. These people were among around 20,000 of those who were sheltering in sturdier buildings on the highlands of Sittwe township such as monasteries, pagodas and schools, according to a leader of the Rakhine Youths Philanthropic Association in Sittwe.

Storm surges whipped up by a powerful cyclone moving inland from the Bay of Bengal inundated Sittwe on Saturday, but largely spared a densely-populated cluster of refugee camps in low-lying neighbouring Bangladesh.

Some 400,000 people were evacuated in Myanmar and Bangladesh ahead of Cyclone Mocha making landfall, as authorities and aid agencies scrambled to avert heavy casualties from one of the strongest storms to hit the region in recent years.

Vulnerable settlements in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, where more than one million Rohingya refugees live, were left relatively unscathed by the storm that is now gradually weakening.

Two children stand under a roadside shelter to protect from rain before Cyclone Mocha hits in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Sunday, May 14, 2023. Bangladesh and Myanmar were bracing Sunday as the extremely severe cyclone was set to hit their coastal areas, and authorities told thousands of people in both countries to seek shelter. AP/PTI(

"Luckily, we could escape the worst of the cyclone," said Mohammad Shamsud Douza, a Bangladesh government official in charge of refugees. "We are getting some reports of huts damaged but there are no casualties."

Myanmar appears to have borne the direct impact of Cyclone Mocha, as winds of up to 210 kph (130 mph) ripped away tin roofs and brought down a communications tower.

Parts of Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, were flooded and the ground floors of several buildings were under water, a video posted on social media by a witness in the city showed.

Massive Storm surge coming into #Sittwe as #CycloneMocha making landfall in #Rankine state

Video from Nayy Lin Soe#Myanmar pic.twitter.com/F6evd5vQ7q— Weatherman Shubham (@shubhamtorres09) May 14, 2023

An ethnic militia that controls swathes of Rakhine said a large number of structures in Sittwe and Kyauktaw had been damaged, and schools and monasteries where people had been sheltering were left without roofs.

"The whole northern Rakhine has suffered severe damage," Arakan Army spokesperson Khine Thu Kha said. "People are in trouble."

Communication networks in Rakhine had been disrupted after the cyclone made landfall, the UN and local media said.

Cyclone Mocha passed through the port city of Sittwe in Myanmar, whipping up powerful winds that ripped away tin roofs and brought down a communications tower https://t.co/YG8TOBMG0X pic.twitter.com/tAeLd8Gg1H

— Reuters (@Reuters) May 14, 2023

Across Rakhine state and the north west of the country about 6 million people were already in need of humanitarian assistance, while 1.2 million have been displaced, according to the UN humanitarian office (OCHA).

"For a cyclone to hit an area where there is already such deep humanitarian need is a nightmare scenario, impacting hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people whose coping capacity has been severely eroded by successive crises," UN resident coordinator Ramanathan Balakrishnan said.

Myanmar has been plunged into chaos since a junta seized power two years ago. After a crackdown on protests, a resistance movement is fighting the military on various fronts.

Communication tower of #Sittwe fell down#CycloneMocha #Rankine https://t.co/bfeGs3WPw1 pic.twitter.com/IUlFNVcKh2

— Weatherman Shubham (@shubhamtorres09) May 14, 2023

A junta spokesperson did not immediately answer a telephone call from Reuters to seek comment.

FOOD AND SUPPLIES

In Bangladesh, where authorities moved around 300,000 people to safer areas before the storm hit, Rohingya refugees inside densely-populated camps in the Cox's Bazar in the south east of the country hunkered down inside their ramshackle homes.

"Our shelter, made of bamboo and tarpaulin, offers little protection," said refugee Mohammed Aziz, 21. "We're praying to Allah to save us."

Many of the Rohingya refugees, half-a-million children among them, live in sprawling camps prone to flooding and landslides after having fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.

VIDEO: Cyclone Mocha rips apart homes in Myanmar.Cyclone Mocha crashed struck Myanmar and Bangladesh on Sunday, sparing sprawling refugee camps but bringing a storm surge to swathes of western Myanmar where communications were largely cut off pic.twitter.com/Mojreu80ho

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) May 15, 2023

Hundreds of thousands of the Muslim Rohingya minority remain in Myanmar's Rakhine state, where many are confined to camps separated from the rest of the population.

"The state government has moved many Rohingya from Sittwe camps to higher grounds area," Zaw Min Tun, a Rohingya resident in Sittwe said, adding that the evacuation took place without any warning.

"They also didn't provide any food to them, so people are starving."

Ahead of the storm, the World Food Programme said it was preparing food and relief supplies that could help more than 400,000 people in Rakhine and surrounding areas for a month.

(With inputs from Reuters)

First Published:May 15, 2023 7:39 AM IST