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Bu Ma (Myanmar) (AFP) – Cyclone Mocha left at least 60 dead as it passed through Myanmar, local leaders and state media reported on Tuesday in this Southeast Asian country, where the affected population is beginning to rebuild their homes and awaits the arrival of help.
Cyclone Mocha made landfall on Sunday May 14 with winds of up to 195 km/h, knocking down power poles and destroying fishing boats.
In Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, at least 41 people were killed in the village of Bu Ma and the nearby town of Jaung Doke Kar, where the majority of residents are from the Rohingya Muslim minority, which is persecuted in Myanmar, local leaders told AFP journalists at the scene.
The collapse of a monastery killed 13 people in a village in Rathedaung district, north of the Rakhine capital Sittwe, and another was killed in a nearby town by a building collapse, Myanmar’s state broadcaster reported. , ‘MRTV’.
“There will be more deaths because more than a hundred people are missing,” said Karlo, a local leader from the Bu Ma village.
The last tally made by the country’s ruling military junta on Monday was five dead and an unspecified number of wounded.
It is unknown if any of the deaths in these towns were included in the military junta’s count. AFP contacted the junta spokesman for an update on the death report.
In the vicinity of Bu Ma village, Aa Bul Hu Son, a 66-year-old man, prayed at the grave of his daughter, whose body was found Tuesday morning.
“I was not in good health before the cyclone, so it took us a long time to move to another place,” he told AFP. “While we were thinking about evacuating, the waves came immediately and swept us away,” the resident said.
The man said he found his daughter’s body in the village lake and buried her right away. “I have no words to express my loss,” he said.
Other residents scoured the coast looking for their relatives swept away by the storm that came along with the cyclone.
Cyclone Mocha is the strongest cyclone to hit this area in a decade, uprooting trees and cutting communications across most of Rakhine State. It also razed Rohingya villages and camps.
China said it “stands ready to deliver emergency disaster relief,” according to a statement posted on the Facebook page of the Beijing embassy in Myanmar.
Refugee camps hit
The Rohingya are considered outsiders in Myanmar, where they lack the right to citizenship and healthcare, and need permission to leave their villages in Rakhine.
A part of this minority lives in camps for those displaced after decades of conflict.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said it is investigating several reports about Rohingya populations living in camps who apparently died from the storm.
The UN office added that it is “working to start a rapid assessment of needs in the most affected areas” of Rakhine state.
In Bangladesh, the neighboring country that borders Rakhine state to the north, authorities told AFP that there are no casualties from the cyclone.
Mocha passed near the camps that are home to nearly a million Rohingya who arrived from Myanmar fleeing a crackdown by the military in 2017.
“Although the impact of the cyclone could have been much worse, the refugee camps were severely affected and thousands of people are in a state of urgent need for help,” the UN said in an urgent appeal.
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