Mocha intensified in intensity as it neared the shores of the Bay of Bengal, according to the US Typhoon Warning Center. The cyclone is accompanied by wind speeds of up to 259 kilometers per hour.
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Posted on 05/14/2023 07:39
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Men on a beach on Shahpori Island in Teknaf prior to landfall of Cyclone Mochar, Bangladesh on May 13, 2023. (ZABED HASNAIN CHOWDHURY / NURPHOTO / AFP)
Cyclone Mocha has strengthened to the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane as it nears the coasts of Bangladesh and Burma in the Bay of Bengal, according to the American Warning Center’s latest typhoon update for Sunday, May 15. A Category 5 hurricane is the highest rating on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
The cyclone is expected to hit the coasts of Burma and Bangladesh on Sunday afternoon, from where hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated. It will be accompanied by winds of up to 260 km/h, according to the website Zoom Earth, which put it in the super cyclone category. Mocha threatens the precarious camps where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees are crammed, provoking a race against time to escape everywhere in his path.
Mocha is expected to weaken slightly before making landfall between Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, and Sittwe, a town of 150,000 in Burma, on Sunday morning, according to India’s Meteorological Service.
wind of panic
On Saturday, Sittwe residents piled their belongings and pets into cars, trucks and tuk-tuks to make their way to higher ground. Mokka should cause a tidal wave of up to 4 meters. 500 km away, in Yangon, the economic capital of Burma, residents felt rain and wind on Sunday. The Myanmar Red Cross said in a statement it was “preparing to respond to a major emergency.”
In Bangladesh, 190,000 people have been evacuated from Cox’s Bazar and nearly 100,000 from the nearby city of Chittagong, according to authorities. “They were taken to nearly 4,000 cyclone shelters,” Division Commissioner Aminur Rahman said. Rohingya refugees have been moved from “risk areas” to community centers while thousands have fled the tourist island of St Maarten, which stands in the way of Mocha.
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