People dismantle tents before moving to safer grounds in light of an approaching cyclone, in an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp for Muslims, outside Sittwe, Myanmar yesterday. More than 100,000 displaced people living in camps or makeshift housing could be relocated to avoid an approaching cyclone, according to the United Nations.
DPA/Bangkok
Tens of thousands of displaced people in western Myanmar were moving to higher ground yesterday as a cyclone was expected to hit their makeshift relief camps in the next few days.
Relief groups said around 140,000 people, forced from their homes due to communal strife in the troubled Rakhine State, were at risk as Cyclone Mahasen was due to hit the coasts of Myanmar and Bangladesh by Thursday morning.
“They are at high risk because of the storm,” Myanmar President Thein Sein’s spokesman, Ye Htut, said on his Facebook page yesterday.
Authorities began moving the displaced people from their camps on Sunday after the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology predicted that Mahasen, packing winds of up to 100 kilometres per hour, was likely to intensify into a “severe cyclonic storm” within 24 hours.
They said the most vulnerable areas were in Rakhine’s Buthitaung and Maungtaw townships, which where seriously affected by communal violence between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims last year.
Without government assistance, “we will suffer a disaster like cyclone Nargis five years ago,” said Htun Lwin, former director of the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology.
Myanmar’s then-ruling junta came under international criticism when Nargis struck in 2008, killing up to 140,000 people, for refusing international assistance.
Aid organisation Oxfam also called on the government “to ensure all communities, including those that are currently displaced, are in safe locations,” said Jane Lonsdale, the group’s acting country director for Myanmar.
“We also need to see commitment from the international community to be ready to make available rapid emergency funding.”
In neighbouring Bangladesh, nearly 50,000 volunteers in coastal districts were put on alert.
“We have asked district administrations and volunteers to take all necessary preparations in case Cyclone Mahasen makes landfall on the Bangladesh coast,” Abdul Wazed, director general of disaster management, said by phone. The Cyclone Preparedness Programme was planning to be operational in 13 districts of Bangladesh.
Cyclone centres in coastal areas and on islands were on alert and fishing boats were advised not to venture out to sea as the storm approached to about 1,000 kilometres from the port of Cox’s Bazar in south-eastern Bangladesh, he said.
