Cyclone Mora batters B’desh, 5 dead, 600,000 evacuated
DOUBLE WHAMMY Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar are worst hit
DHAKA: Cyclone Mora battered Bangladesh on Tuesday, killing five people, damaging thousands of homes and ripping through a camp housing thousands of Rohingya refugees who had fled violence in Myanmar.
Authorities said they evacuated nearly 600,000 people from vulnerable areas before the storm hit the coastal district of Cox’s Bazar early Tuesday, bringing winds of up to 135 km per hour.
Disaster management authorities told AFP five people had been killed, four of them crushed by falling trees in the area. It was not immediately clear how the fifth person died.
Authorities in Cox’s Bazar said at least 17,000 homes, excluding the Rohingya shelters, had been damaged in the district, with many low-lying villages inundated by a storm surge reaching four feet.
Some of the worst damage was at the camps housing the 300,000 Rohingya refugees living in Cox’s Bazar, many of them in flimsy huts.
The local head of the International Organisation for Migration, which coordinates relief for refugees, said most homes at one camp had their roofs blown off.
Community leaders said there had been no attempt to evacuate undocumented Rohingya, although those with official refugee status were alerted about the dangers.
Abul Hashim, a spokesman for the disaster management department, told AFP the authorities only evacuated the most vulnerable from low-lying coastal areas.
The weather department said the cyclone lost power as it headed into the Rangamati hill district and turned into a depression, bringing rain.
Bangladesh is routinely hit between April and December by severe storms that cause deaths and widespread damage. AFP