Cyclone Mocha reaches Myanmar and Bangladesh, kills at least 6

A storm forecast to be the strongest to hit Myanmar in more than a decade made landfall near the country’s border with Bangladesh on Sunday, but early reports suggested that it so far had not led to the humanitarian catastrophe authorities feared.

Cyclone Mocha moved ashore Sunday afternoon in the coastal area around Cox’s Bazar, according to Bangladesh’s meteorological department. The Bangladeshi city is home to the world’s largest refugee encampment.

By Sunday morning, maximum sustained winds had reached 160 mph, with gusts surpassing 180 mph, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, making it a Category 5 storm. That is the highest rating on the Saffir-Simpson Scale and indicates potential for catastrophic damage.

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Even before the cyclone moved ashore, U Hla Moe, a representative from a rescue team in Tachileik, a city in the country’s eastern region, said a landslide caused by heavy rain had killed two people early Sunday when it buried them in their house while they were sleeping. Local news media reported that at least four more people had died in the western and central regions of the country.

Officials said heavy rains in Bangladesh had caused damage in several areas. About 500 shanties were damaged in the Rohingya camps, while thousands of houses were destroyed or partially damaged in the broader Cox’s Bazar and St. Martin areas, officials said.

Officials and storm watchers expressed cautious hope that the region could be spared the worst as the storm weakened over land.

“Fortunately, the rainfall was not as persistent as we had feared, and no casualties have been reported so far,” said Mizanur Rahman, the refugee relief and repatriation commissioner in Cox’s Bazar. “Overall, it appears that the damage was not as extensive as we had initially anticipated.”

At least 20 villages in the Magway region, along the banks of the Irrawaddy River, were underwater because of a broken dam, affecting at least 100 people who needed help, according to local news reports.

The Bangladesh Meteorological Center said Sunday that the center of the cyclone had crossed Cox’s Bazar at 3 p.m., and that it would finish crossing the coast by Sunday evening and gradually weaken.