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Bangladesh, Myanmar brace for cyclone Mocha, now in top hurricane category: US
Cyclone Mocha, packing winds of up to 210 kph, could bring sea surges of up to 12 feet (4 m) affecting more than 2 million people directly in its path.
Cyclone Mocha intensified into a category five hurricane on Sunday, hours ahead of its predicted landfall in Myanmar and Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of people evacuated from the coasts were taking shelter.
Mocha was packing winds of up to 140 knots or 259 kilometres per hour, the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center said, the equivalent to a category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
It is forecast to make landfall around 0630 GMT between Cox's Bazar, where nearly one million Rohingya refugees live in camps largely made up of flimsy shelters, and Sittwe on Myanmar's western Rakhine coast.
"The wind is getting stronger at the moment," rescue worker Kyaw Kyaw Khaing told AFP from Pauktaw town, about 25 kilometres inland from Sittwe, and where he said around 3,000 people had arrived to seek shelter.
Read | Cyclone Mocha in Myanmar and Bangladesh: 10 latest updates
"We distributed enough food for one or two meals to the people evacuated to temporary shelters. I don't think we will be able to send any food today due to the weather."
Thousands left Sittwe on Saturday, packing into trucks, cars and tuk-tuks and heading for higher ground inland as meteorologists warned of a storm surge of up to 3.5 metres.
"We are not OK because we didn't bring food and other things to cook," said Maung Win, 57, who spent the night in a shelter in Kyauktaw town. "We can only wait to get food from people's donations."
Bangladeshi authorities moved 190,000 people in Cox's Bazar and nearly 100,000 in Chittagong to safety, divisional commissioner Aminur Rahman told AFP late Saturday.
The rain and wind were felt in Myanmar's commercial hub Yangon, around 500 kilometres away, residents said Sunday.
