Hundreds of thousands flee as cyclone thunders towards Myanmar, Bangladesh

SITTWE, Myanmar — Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from the coasts of Myanmar and Bangladesh on Saturday as the region's most powerful cyclone for over a decade churned across the Bay of Bengal.

Cyclone Mocha was packing winds of up to 240 kilometres per hour (149 miles per hour), according to the Zoom Earth website, which classed it as a Super Cyclone.

A dangerous category four on the Saffir-Simpson scale, it was expected to weaken before making landfall on Sunday morning between Cox's Bazar, where nearly one million Rohingya refugees live in camps largely made up of flimsy shelters, and Sittwe on Myanmar's western Rakhine coast.

But Bangladeshi authorities moved 190,000 people in Cox's Bazar and nearly 100,000 in Chittagong to safety, divisional commissioner Aminur Rahman told AFP late Saturday.

"They were evacuated to nearly 4,000 cyclone shelters," he said.

Forecasters in Dhaka were predicting a storm surge up to nearly four metres (12 feet) high, which could inundate low-lying coastal and riverine villages.

On the other side of the border, Sittwe residents piled possessions and pets into cars, trucks and tuk-tuks and headed for higher ground on Saturday, AFP reporters saw.

"We have our grandma in our family and we have to take care of her," Khine Min told AFP from a truck packed with his relatives on a road out of the state capital. 

"There is only one man left in Sittwe to take care of our homes."

Shops and markets in the town of about 150,000 people were shuttered, with many locals sheltering in monasteries.

Kyaw Tin, 40, said he could not leave the area as his son was in a local hospital.

"I hope this cyclone won't come to our state. But if this fate happens we can't ignore it," he said.

"I'm worried that this cyclone will affect our state just like Nargis did," he added -- a 2008 storm that killed more than 130,000 people.

Myanmar's junta authorities were supervising evacuations from villages along the Rakhine coast, state media reported Friday.

Myanmar Airways International said all its flights to Rakhine state had been suspended until Monday.

The Myanmar Red Cross Society said it was "preparing for a major emergency response."

'Panic'

In Bangladesh, authorities have banned the Rohingya refugees from constructing concrete homes, fearing it may incentivise them to settle permanently rather than return to Myanmar, which they fled five years ago following a brutal military crackdown.

"We live in houses made of tarpaulin and bamboo," said refugee Enam Ahmed, at the Nayapara camp near the border town of Teknaf.

"We are scared. We don't know where we will be sheltered."

The camps are generally slightly inland, but most of them are built on hillsides, exposing them to the threat of landslides. 

Forecasters expect the cyclone to bring a deluge of rain, which can trigger landslips.

Officials moved to evacuate Rohingya refugees from "risky areas" to community centres and more solid structures such as schools, but Bangladesh's deputy refugee commissioner Shamsud Douza told AFP: "All the Rohingyas in the camps are at risk."

Hundreds of people also fled Saint Martin's island, a local resort area right in the storm's path, with thousands more moving to cyclone shelters on the coral outcrop.

"Cyclone Mocha is the most powerful storm since Cyclone Sidr," Azizur Rahman, the head of Bangladesh's Meteorological Department, told AFP.

That cyclone hit Bangladesh's southern coast in November 2007, killing more than 3,000 people and causing billions of dollars in damage.

Rohingya living in displacement camps inside Myanmar were also bracing for the storm.  

"We are very worried. We can be in danger if the water level increases," said a camp leader near Kyaukphyu in Rakhine state, who asked not to be named for fear of repercussions from the junta.

"There are about 1000 people at the camp... The authorities only gave us rice bags, oil and five life jackets. Local authorities haven't arranged any place for us."

Operations were suspended at Bangladesh's largest seaport, Chittagong, with boat transport and fishing also halted.