() — Hundreds of people are feared dead after powerful Cyclone Mocha hit Myanmar on Sunday, with rescue groups warning of “large-scale loss of life” following one of the strongest storms in the country’s history.
Cyclone Mocha devastated the Myanmar coast on Sunday, collapsing houses and trees, toppling telephone poles and severely compromising communication lines in the troubled Rakhine state, home to hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
Myanmar’s shadow government said Tuesday that at least 400 people have died and an unknown number remain missing. cannot independently verify that figure, which contrasts with an earlier report by the military junta’s Myawaddy television, which put the official death toll at three people, with 13 others injured.
But sources speaking to said that many of the bodies of the Rohingya victims, who are Muslim, have already been buried following “religious customs.”
“I can’t control my tears,” said Aung Zaw Hein, a resident of Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, who told he saw the bodies of children, the elderly and pregnant women lying on the ground after the cyclone hit.
“People are having a very bad time… because they don’t have food, they don’t have a place to sleep,” he added. “People are left homeless, without shelter, some people are even without power. The same situation has been repeated again in our lifetime for the Rohingya.”
Aung Zaw Hein also said that he had performed Islamic funeral prayers for eight victims.
The leader of Myanmar’s military junta, Min Aung Hlaing, visited Sittwe to assess the damage and deliver donations to its residents, state media MRTV reported Monday.
Large-scale loss of life in the fields
Impoverished and largely isolated, Rakhine has been the scene of widespread political violence in recent years.
Nearly a million stateless Rohingya, members of the persecuted Muslim minority, have crossed into neighboring Bangladesh since 2017, fleeing a brutal and bloody crackdown by the Myanmar junta.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya remain in Rakhine, mostly confined to camps where authorities impose strict controls on their movements.
It is in these poorly built camps that aid agencies fear Cyclone Mocha has hit the hardest.
There has been “large-scale loss of life in the camps,” said Brad Hazlett, president of the non-governmental organization Partners Relief and Development.
“We cannot say an exact number, but we know of a small village that we have connected with today and provided toilets and hand water pumps in the last year. That village was totally destroyed by the cyclone and at least 20 people lost life there,” he said.
A man walks past destroyed buildings in Sittwe, Myanmar’s Rakhine State, on May 15, 2023, after Cyclone Mocha made landfall. Credit: Sai Aung Main/AFP/Getty Images
Hazlett added that fatality figures shared online vary significantly and her organization could not give a precise breakdown at this time, but they expect the number of fatalities to rise.
“During this time, the telephone network remains unstable, roads are blocked and at least one concrete bridge was washed away, so confirming the numbers is difficult,” Hazlett said. “We have heard that many people are still missing or may be under destroyed shelters.”
People living in refugee camps in Sittwe drowned in floodwaters unleashed by the cyclone, the National Unity Government (NUG) wrote in a situation report on Tuesday, and the NUG’s Rohingya adviser, Aung Kyaw Moe, tweeted that the death toll in Sittwe alone stood at 400.
The NUG is made up of a group of ousted lawmakers, opponents of the coup and representatives of ethnic minorities who are seeking recognition as the legitimate government of Myanmar. It operates covertly or through members based abroad.
Another group, the Arakan Civil Society Organization Network (or Arakan CSO Network), told that it had launched rescue efforts in northern Rakhine state, and some 400 people had been killed in a “Muslim” camp in Sittwe, between they many minors.
On May 15, 2023, after Cyclone Mocha made landfall in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Myanmar, several residents ride motorcycles past broken electricity poles. Credit: Sai Aung Main/AFP/Getty Images
Videos showed wind gusts of more than 200 kilometers per hour ripping through Sittwe, flattening houses in some areas and leaving bamboo and other remnants of wood dangerously scattered across villages.
more devastation
In addition, torrential rains triggered landslides in villages in western Myanmar’s Chin state, causing the destruction of buildings and homes, according to the NUG.
The NUG also said that communications have been disrupted or down in cyclone-affected areas and that the number of casualties is “highly likely to increase.”
Also, the NUG reported that roofing material, especially tarpaulins, is needed for some 500,000 homes, and emergency food and drinking water are urgently needed for about a million people in northern Rakhine state.
“It is crucial to provide humanitarian aid in the most devastated areas, such as Rakhine State, Sagaing, Magway and Chin State, as soon as possible,” he wrote in the report, which included before-and-after satellite images of the worst areas. affected.
The shadow government also said some 13,000 hectares of farmland is inundated, with extensive crop destruction in towns of Sagaing and Magway.
“It is estimated that more than 90% has been destroyed in (11) townships across Rakhine State by the cyclone.”
government persecution
As Cyclone Mocha raged in the Bay of Bengal last week, the UN Humanitarian Office (OCHA) warned that some 6 million people in the region were already in need of humanitarian aid, including 1.2 million internally displaced by the ethnic conflict, reported Reuters.
The Myanmar military, which seized power in a 2022 coup, considers the Rohingya illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The Rohingya counter that they have lived in Rakhine for generations.
An estimated one million Rohingya are now living in what many consider the world’s largest refugee camp, in Bangladesh, after fleeing a brutal campaign of killings and arson by the Myanmar army.
At one point Cyclone Mocha was predicted to hit the countryside, but was spared a direct hit as the storm made landfall further down the coast.
An estimated 600,000 Rohingya remain in Rakhine, according to Human Rights Watch, and are “targeted by government violence and persecution, confined to fields and villages without freedom of movement and without access to food, health care, education, and livelihoods.” suitable”.
The last storm to make landfall in Myanmar with similar force was Cyclone Giri in October 2010. Giri caused more than 150 fatalities and destroyed approximately 70% of the town of Kyaukphyu. According to the UN, some 15,000 homes were destroyed in Rakhine state during that storm.
In 2008, Cyclone Nargis ripped through the Irrawaddy Delta, a low-lying area of Myanmar, killing nearly 140,000 people.
