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After brewing in the Bay of Bengal for days, Cyclone Mocha is
likely to intensify further and make landfall between Cox's
Bazar in Bangladesh and Myanmar on Sunday, Bangladesh
Meteorological Department said in a bulletin.
Cox's Bazar, a southeastern border district, is where more than
a million Rohingya refugees live, most having fled a
military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.
Mocha - categorised as a very severe cyclonic storm - is
expected to cut a path through Myanmar's Rakhine and
northwestern region, where six million people need humanitarian
assistance and 1.2 million are displaced, the U.N. humanitarian
office said.
Since a junta seized power two years ago, Myanmar has been
plunged into chaos and a resistance movement is fighting the
military on multiple fronts after a bloody crackdown on
protests.
A spokesperson for the Myanmar junta did not respond to a phone
call.
"We are focusing on saving lives," said Mohammad Shamsud Douza,
a Bangladesh government official responsible for refugees.
"People who are at risk of landslides will be evacuated."
Thousands of trained community workers and volunteers had
already been deployed, alongside medical and rescue personnel
who are on stand-by, he said.
In Myanmar, the World Food Programme said it was preparing food
and relief supplies that could help more than 400,000 people in
Rakhine and surrounding areas for a month.
Some people in Rakhine's capital Sittwe were either leaving
their homes to seek shelter on higher ground or moving further
inland, a resident said.
"Everyone is trying to leave town since yesterday afternoon,"
the 20-year-old said, asking not to be named, "Not many people
remain in my street, just my family."
(Reporting by Ruma Paul in DHAKA and Reuters staff, Writing by
Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
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