5/15/2023 4:46 pm (act. 5/15/2023 4:50 pm)
Storm left a trail of destruction ©APA/AFP
Category 5 Cyclone Mocha wreaked havoc in parts of Myanmar and Bangladesh. However, the full extent of the damage is only slowly becoming clear as most communication links have collapsed. “Now we are constantly receiving new reports that the level of destruction is increasing,” humanitarian organization Oxfam said on Monday.
The tropical cyclone made landfall on the west coast of the two neighboring countries on Sunday with winds of over 250 kilometers per hour. It was the strongest cyclone to hit the region in over a decade.
Photos and videos of the affected areas showed many covered houses and huts. Debris was everywhere. Heavy rains and storms also caused severe flooding. Numerous beautiful pagodas in Myanmar were underwater. Numerous trees and power poles also snapped. “Some cities look like lakes, some villages are empty of houses,” said Min Thein, a resident of hard-hit Rakhine state on the west coast of former Burma.
In both countries, hundreds of thousands of people had already been moved to safety as a precaution. This apparently saved many lives: according to Oxfam, at least eight people died in Myanmar, in Bangladesh there were initially no reports of casualties.
The crisis-ridden country of Myanmar has been plunged into chaos and violence since a military coup two years ago. The ruling junta suppresses all resistance with an iron fist and repeatedly launches air strikes against its own people. More than a million people already live as displaced people in their own country, often in makeshift camps.
The storm is having a “huge impact” on the lives of IDPs, said Rajan Khosla, director of Oxfam in Myanmar. “We call on the international community to provide the necessary means to allow them to live in dignity.”
Even before the cyclone, around six million people were in need of humanitarian aid in the cyclone-affected states (Rakhine, Chin, Magway and Sagaing). Oxfam stressed that the need for basic needs such as shelter, clean water and sanitation will only increase.
The town of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh was also affected. About a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar live in the world’s largest cluster of refugee camps, mostly in housing made of bamboo and plastic sheeting. About 2,500 of those shelters have been completely or partially destroyed, said the head of Bangladesh’s Rohingya authority, Mizanur Rahman.
Many in the region feared that “Mocha” could have the same dire effects as Cyclone “Nargis” 15 years ago: In May 2008, the tropical storm in Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta killed nearly 140,000 people, according to estimates.