Fishing boats, houses destroyed as Cyclone Mocha death toll rises in Myanmar

The death toll from Cyclone Mocha, which barrelled through the Bay of Bengal, continues to rise as contact is slowly restored to western Myanmar. By Tuesday, at least 60 people were reported dead.

The cyclone made landfall between Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh and Myanmar’s Sittwe carrying winds of up to 195 kilometres per hour, the biggest storm to hit the Bay of Bengal in more than a decade.

The storm had largely passed by late Sunday, sparing the refugee camps housing almost a million Rohingya in Bangladesh, where officials said there had been no deaths.

Twenty-four people were killed in the Khaung Doke Kar village tract northwest of Sittwe, a Rohingya camp leader said, requesting anonymity due to fear of reprisals from the junta.

Several others were feared missing from the low-lying tract, home to Rohingya villages and IDP camps, he said.

Bangladesh officials said they had evacuated 750,000 people.