Powerful Cyclone Mocha Makes Landfall in Myanmar, Tearing off Roofs and Killing at Least 3

A local rides motorbike on nearly empty road before Cyclone Mocha hits in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Sunday, May 14, 2023. (AP Photo)
A local rides motorbike on nearly empty road before Cyclone Mocha hits in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Sunday, May 14, 2023. (AP Photo)
TT
20

Powerful Cyclone Mocha Makes Landfall in Myanmar, Tearing off Roofs and Killing at Least 3

A local rides motorbike on nearly empty road before Cyclone Mocha hits in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Sunday, May 14, 2023. (AP Photo)
A local rides motorbike on nearly empty road before Cyclone Mocha hits in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Sunday, May 14, 2023. (AP Photo)

Thousands of people hunkered down Sunday in monasteries, pagodas and schools, seeking shelter from a powerful storm that slammed into the coast of Myanmar, tearing roofs off buildings and killing at least three people.

The center of Cyclone Mocha made landfall Sunday afternoon in Myanmar’s Rakhine state near Sittwe township wind speeds up to 209 kilometers (130 miles) per hour, Myanmar’s Meteorological Department said. The storm previously passed over Bangladesh's Saint Martin's Island, causing damage and injuring people, but turned away from the country's shores before landfall.

As night fell, the extent of the damage in Sittwe was not clear. Earlier in the day, high winds crumpled cell phone towers, cutting off communications in much of the area.

In videos collected by local media before communications were cut off, deep water races through streets while wind lashes trees and pulls boards off roofs.

Rakhine-based media reported that streets were flooded, trapping people in low-lying areas in their homes as worried relatives outside the township appealed for rescue.

Myanmar’s military information office said the storm had damaged houses, electrical transformers, cell phone towers, boats and lampposts in Sittwe, Kyaukpyu, and Gwa townships. It said the storm also tore roofs off of sport buildings on the Coco Islands, about 425 kilometers (264 miles) southwest of the country’s largest city, Yangon.

More than 4,000 of Sittwe's 300,000 residents were evacuated to other cities and more than 20,000 people are sheltering in sturdy buildings such as monasteries, pagodas and schools located on the city's highlands, said Tin Nyein Oo, who is volunteering in shelters in Sittwe.

Lin Lin, the chairman of a local charitable foundation, said there was not enough food in the shelters in Sittwe after more people arrived than expected.

Titon Mitra, the UN Development Program representative in Myanmar, tweeted: “Mocha has made landfall. 2m people at risk. Damage and losses are expected to be extensive. We are ready to respond and will need unhindered access to all affected communities.”

Myanmar state television reported that the military government is preparing to send food, medicine and medical personnel to the storm-hit area.

On Sunday morning, several deaths caused by wind and rain were reported in Myanmar. A rescue team from the country’s eastern Shan state announced on its Facebook social media page that they had recovered the bodies of a couple who were buried when a landslide caused by heavy rain hit their house in Tachileik township.  

Local media reported that a man was crushed to death when a banyan tree fell on him in Pyin Oo Lwin township in the central Mandalay Region.

Authorities in the Bangladeshi city of Cox's Bazar, which lay in the storm's predicted path, said earlier that they had evacuated hundreds of thousands of people, but by early afternoon it appeared that the storm would mostly miss the country as it veered east, said Azizur Rahman, director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department in Dhaka.

“The level of risk has reduced to a great extent in our Bangladesh,” he told reporters.

Strong winds accompanied by rains continued in the Saint Martin's Island in the Bay of Bengal in the afternoon, but feared tidal surges did not take place because the cyclone started crossing Bangladesh coast at low tide, Dhaka-based Jamuna TV station reported.

About a dozen islanders were injured, while some 300 homes were either destroyed or damaged, leading Bengali-language daily Prothom Alo reported. One woman was critically wounded, it said.

UN agencies and aid workers in Bangladesh had prepositioned tons of dry food and dozens of ambulances with mobile medical teams in sprawling refugee camps that house more than 1 million Rohingya who fled persecution in Myanmar.

In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar with a storm surge that devastated populated areas around the Irrawaddy River Delta. At least 138,000 people died and tens of thousands of homes and other buildings were washed away.

Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune city, said cyclones in the Bay of Bengal are becoming more intense more quickly, in part because of climate change.

Climate scientists say cyclones can now retain their energy for many days. Cyclone Amphan in eastern India in 2020 continued to travel over land as a strong cyclone and caused extensive devastation.

“As long as oceans are warm and winds are favorable, cyclones will retain their intensity for a longer period,” Koll said.

Cyclones, giant storms similar to those known as hurricanes or typhoons in other parts of the world, are among the world’s most devastating natural disasters, especially when they hit densely populated coastal regions.



Pope Appears to be Overcoming Setback in Recovery from Pneumonia

FILE PHOTO: A drone view shows an image of Pope Francis displayed with a digital video-mapping at the Obelisco as the worlds pray for the pontiff's health, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, February 21, 2025. REUTERS/Martin Cossarini/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A drone view shows an image of Pope Francis displayed with a digital video-mapping at the Obelisco as the worlds pray for the pontiff's health, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, February 21, 2025. REUTERS/Martin Cossarini/File Photo
TT
20

Pope Appears to be Overcoming Setback in Recovery from Pneumonia

FILE PHOTO: A drone view shows an image of Pope Francis displayed with a digital video-mapping at the Obelisco as the worlds pray for the pontiff's health, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, February 21, 2025. REUTERS/Martin Cossarini/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A drone view shows an image of Pope Francis displayed with a digital video-mapping at the Obelisco as the worlds pray for the pontiff's health, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, February 21, 2025. REUTERS/Martin Cossarini/File Photo

Pope Francis was up and receiving therapy on Monday after apparently overcoming a setback in his recovery from pneumonia. The Vatican said he is stable, off mechanical ventilation and is showing no sign of new infection following a respiratory crisis late last week.
“The pope rested well all night,” the Vatican said in its update from Gemelli hospital, where Francis has been hospitalized since Feb. 14.
On Monday, he had coffee and breakfast and was undergoing therapy, The Associated Press reported.
Earlier, doctors reported the 88-year-old pope spent all day Sunday without using the noninvasive mechanical ventilation mask that pumps oxygen into his lungs that he had to use following the coughing episode and crisis on Friday. Francis did continue to receive high flow supplemental oxygen through a nasal tube.
The respiratory crisis sparked fears of a new lung infection because Francis inhaled some vomit. Doctors aspirated it and said they needed 24 to 48 hours to determine if any new infection took hold.
On Sunday evening, they said Francis remained stable, with no fever or signs of an infection, indicating he had overcome the crisis. His prognosis remained guarded, however, meaning he wasn’t out of danger.
Francis on Sunday also received a visit from the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and his chief of staff, Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra. The content of their talks wasn’t known, but even when at the Vatican, Francis meets at least weekly with them.
He again skipped his weekly noon blessing to avoid even a brief public appearance from the hospital. Instead, the Vatican distributed a message written by the pope from the 10th floor in which he thanked his doctors for their care and well-wishers for their prayers, and prayed again for peace in Ukraine and elsewhere.
“From here, war appears even more absurd,” Francis said in the message, which he drafted in recent days. Francis said he was living his hospitalization as an experience of profound solidarity with people who are sick and suffering everywhere.
“I feel in my heart the ‘blessing’ that is hidden within frailty, because it is precisely in these moments that we learn even more to trust in the Lord,” Francis said in the text. “At the same time, I thank God for giving me the opportunity to share in body and spirit the condition of so many sick and suffering people.”
The Argentine pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli on Feb. 14 after his bronchitis worsened and turned into a complex pneumonia in both lungs.
On Sunday night at the Vatican, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski presided over the evening Rosary prayer in St. Peter's Square.
“Let us pray together with the entire church for the health of the Holy Father Francis,” said Krajewski, who is the pope's personal Almoner, a centuries-old job of handing out alms. Francis has elevated the job to make it an extension of his own personal charity.
The American Cardinal Robert Prevost, who heads the Vatican's powerful office for bishops, was celebrating Monday night's prayer.