Super cyclone Mocha made landfall along the Myanmar-Bangladesh coasts on Sunday after intensifying into the equivalent of a category-five storm, a senior Met official said.
The powerful cyclone made landfall shortly after midday on the Teknaf shorelines before making its way through the Naf River that divides Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Packing winds of up to 195 km per hour, Mocha uprooted trees and scattered flimsy homes in the Rohingya camps as it hit low-lying areas in Bangladesh and Myanmar's Sittwe, according to Bangladesh's weather office.
The biggest storm to hit the Bay of Bengal in over a decade flooded streets in the coastal town of Sittwe. On Saturday, thousands packed and left Sittwe for higher ground. Hundreds of people also fled Bangladesh's Saint Martin's island to cyclone shelters. In Teknaf, traffic was brought to a halt and residents were sent fleeing for cover.
Bangladeshi authorities had moved 190,000 people in Cox's Bazar and nearly 100,000 in Chittagong to safety, divisional commissioner Aminur Rahman told AFP late Saturday. A lot of Rohingyas, who cannot build concrete homes, have homes on hillsides, putting them at risk of landslides.
Bangladesh's weather office predicts the cyclone could bring a deluge of rain, which can trigger landslides.
