Cyclone Mocha causes heavy damage in Myanmar’s Rakhine State

Cyclone Mocha may have been less deadly than anticipated, but it caused extensive damage in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, including the capital of Sittwe.

On Monday, a day after the storm hit the coast, images in and around the city showed collapsed homes, roads blocked by downed power poles, splintered tree remnants and widespread flooding. Power went out in Sittwe, a city of about 150,000 people.

“Ninety percent of Sittwe Township…is damaged or under rubble,” aid and relief groups told Radio Free Asia.

An exact death toll was difficult to pin down. At least 30 people are believed to have died, according to local media reports and residents of the affected regions. Myanmar’s junta had said three people had been killed, while the shadow Government of National Unity, made up of opponents of the junta, put the number at 18.

Those figures are much lower than feared. Cyclone Nargis, which hit the same area in 2008, left nearly 140,000 people dead or missing.

The storm hit the coast on Sunday with sustained winds reaching 220 kilometers per hour (137 mph).

“The buildings have been badly damaged,” said a woman living in Sittwe’s Lanmadaw (South) neighbourhood, asking not to be named. “The monastery in front of my house is completely destroyed. Not a single house is left undamaged.”

Low-lying areas of Sittwe were inundated with floodwaters, he said, forcing residents to deal with brackish water and, in some places, chest-deep water from the Bay of Bengal.

“Piles of mud have been left inside the buildings,” he said. “Since there is no electricity, we have not been able to clean them… The roof of my house is almost gone and there is water below. We don’t know what to do to clean them up.”

A Sittwe firefighter told RFA that flooding in the city was “still reaching 1.5 meters (5 feet) in low-lying areas” and that evacuated residents were waiting for news from the Rakhine state government to return to their homes.

Impact on Bangladesh

Meanwhile, in neighboring Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar to the west, some 1.2 million Rohingya who were living in refugee camps after fleeing a military offensive in Rakhine state in 2017 remained largely unscathed by the cyclone, despite earlier fears that most of the unprotected camps were directly in the crosshairs of the storm. .

But while no casualties were reported after the cyclone, Rohingya refugees told RFA that thousands of homes were damaged in the sprawling camps due to strong winds, landslides and flooding.

“About 500 houses were damaged in our camp alone,” said Aung Myaing, a refugee at the Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar. damaged.”

He said the camp residents need bamboo and tarpaulins to help repair the damage.

RFA-affiliated BenarNews reported that Mocha had destroyed more than 2,800 shelters, learning centers, health centers and other infrastructure in refugee camps in neighboring Teknaf and Ukhia sub-districts, citing Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, aid commissioner and refugee repatriation. He noted that landslides were also reported at 120 points in the Rohingya camps.

Rahman said there were no casualties because “we relocated them at the appropriate time.”

‘Path of Devastation’

In a quick update on Monday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance called Mocha “one of the strongest cyclones to ever hit the country” and said the storm had left a “trail of devastation ” in Rakhine State, which is also home to tens of thousands of people displaced by the conflict after the military coup on February 1, 2021.

“Few houses have escaped damage in Sittwe and there is widespread destruction of flimsy bamboo longhouses in displacement camps,” UNOCHA said.

“Health needs, relief items, shelter, water, sanitation and hygiene are already being reported. Explosive device risks are high in conflict-affected rural areas where landmines may have been displaced during floods and where people have moved to safer areas.

Damage to telecommunication towers has severely hampered the flow of information in Rakhine, while power and water services were disrupted throughout the day on Monday, forcing residents to rely on generators for electricity.

Relief efforts underway

UNOCHA said humanitarian partners are starting assessments to confirm the extent of the damage in Sittwe and the Rakhine townships of Pauktaw, Rathedaung, Maungdaw, Ponnagyun and Kyauktaw. He called for “an urgent injection of funds” to respond to the impact of Mocha and subsequent flooding in the region.

In response to emailed questions from RFA, the World Food Program said it is “mobilizing emergency food and nutrition assistance for 800,000 cyclone-affected people, many already displaced by the conflict.”

Before the cyclone, the UN had estimated that 6 million people “already had humanitarian needs” in Rakhine state and the Chin, Magway and Sagaing regions. Collectively, the states host 1.2 million displaced people, prompting OCHA to warn of “a nightmare scenario”.

However, Mocha had weakened by Sunday night and moved into northwestern Myanmar, where it downgraded to a depression on Monday in the Sagaing region of the country.

RFA was able to document the deaths of at least a dozen people. They included a 30-year-old woman from Rakhine’s Ramree Township, two 20-year-old men from Ayeyarwady Region’s Yegyi Township and Rakhine’s Toungup Township, and four men of unknown ages from Rakhine’s Kyauktaw Township.

Other deaths included a Sittwe resident, a man in his 50s from Pyin Oo Lwin township in the Mandalay region, a young couple from Tachileik town in Shan state, and a 70-year-old woman from the township from Sinphyukyun of the Magway region.

RFA’s attempts to contact Hla Thein, junta spokesman for Rakhine state, about recovery efforts in the region went unanswered on Monday.

To the north

While Rakhine State bore the brunt of Mocha’s damage, aid workers told RFA that houses and plantations were damaged and more than 10,000 people displaced by torrential rains and winds from 96 to 112 kilometers per hour (60 to 70 mph) at Sagaing. and the Magway regions, as well as Chin State.

Residents of Sagaing’s Khin-U township reported that more than 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) of agricultural crops, including mung beans, sesame, chili peppers and chrysanthemums, in some 50 villages were destroyed during several days of downpour.

Others lamented having to rebuild homes that, in many cases, had already been rebuilt after being destroyed by arson amid a military offensive in the regions against anti-junta paramilitary groups and ethnic armies.

On Sunday, the head of the junta, Chief General Min Aung Hlaing, vowed that “all Myanmar citizens” will receive assistance as part of the country’s rescue and rehabilitation efforts.

Thet Thet Khaing, the junta’s relief and resettlement minister, did not respond to repeated calls for comment on Monday.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.