MYANMAR: The death toll in cyclone-hit Myanmar’s Rakhine state rose to 41 on Tuesday, local leaders told AFP, as villagers tried to piece together ruined homes and waited for aid and support.
With winds of up to 195 kilometers per hour, Mocha made landfall on Sunday, downing power pylons and smashing wooden fishing boats to splinters.
At least 41 people died in the villages of Bu Ma and nearby Khaung Doke Kar, inhabited by the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, local leaders told AFP reporters at the scene.
“There will be more deaths, as more than a hundred people are missing,” said Karlo, the head of Bu Ma village near state capital Sittwe.
Mocha was the most powerful cyclone to hit the area in over a decade, churning up villages, uprooting trees and knocking out communications across much of Rakhine state.
Myanmar’s junta said on Monday that five people were killed, without specifying where. It was not clear if that toll included any of those killed in Bu Ma and Khaung Doke Kar.
Cyclones -- the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the Northwest Pacific -- are a regular and deadly menace on the coast of the northern Indian Ocean where tens of millions of people live. Non-profit ClimateAnalytics said rising temperatures may have contributed to Cyclone Mocha’s intensity.
- THE HINDUSTAN TIMES
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