Some 15,000 inhabitants of the west coast of Myanmar (formerly Burma) were evacuated from their homes before the arrival of Cyclone Mocha, scheduled for Sunday, with sustained winds of 160 kilometers per hour, local media reported on Friday.
In the Ayeyarwady region, west of Myanmar’s former capital Rangoon, some 10,000 people have taken refuge in Buddhist monasteries and other religious buildings. The number of people seeking refuge in these places is increasing daily, the Democratic Voice of Burma television said.
Another 5,000 people were evacuated from the coastal areas of the western Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh.
Fire services and other emergency teams are finalizing preparations should it be necessary to respond to this potential natural disaster, the pro-government newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar wrote today.
According to the Burmese weather agency, Cyclone Mocha will make landfall on Sunday morning between the Bengali city of Cox’s Bazar, home to nearly a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, in one of the world’s largest refugee camps, and the Burmese city of Kyaukphyu in Rakhine.
The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS), created in 2004 in cooperation between the United Nations and the European Commission, declared this Thursday a red alert -the highest- for this category 3 cyclone (out of a maximum of 5), that can reach gusts of wind of up to 204 kilometers per hour.
According to the agency, the natural phenomenon will cause heavy rains and will affect some 2.2 million people in both countries.
Mocha is approaching Myanmar on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of Cyclone Nargis, the worst natural disaster in the country’s history, which killed more than 130,000 people in May 2008.
Source: TSF
