Cyclone Mora pounds Bangladesh

DHAKA: Authorities evacuated some 350,000 Bangladeshi yesterday, as a cyclone battered refugee camps where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar have taken refuge.

Cyclone Mora struck the island of Saint Martin and Teknaf in the coastal district of Cox’s Bazar, where officials said some 200,000 people were evacuated to shelters while another 150,000 were moved to safety in Chittagong district.

The islands are a few miles from the Myanmar border, and the refugee camps.

Rohingya community leader Shamsul Alam said damage at the camps were severe, with almost all the 10,000 thatched huts in the Balukhali and Kutupalong camps destroyed.

Another community leader in Kutupalong said conditions were dire, as refugees were “now out in the open”.

Officials in Chittagong reported winds of up to 135kph, and said lowlying coastal areas were flooded by a storm surge with two-metre waves. Flights in the area were also cancelled.

A UN official working with Rohingya refugees said the damage in the camps could not be assessed while the storm was raging.

“Heavily pregnant women have been evacuated but most people in areas like Balukhali and Kutupalong makeshift settlements have stayed,” said the official.

The cyclone formed after monsoon rains triggered floods and landslides in Sri Lanka, off India’s southern tip, killing at least 180 people, authorities said.

In the eastern Indian state of Bihar, 24 people have been killed in recent days, either by lightning or in collapsed dwellings. – Reuters