Displaced people brace as cyclone heads for Myanmar, Bangladesh
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Tens of thousands of displaced people in western Myanmar were moving to higher ground Monday 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 Monday.
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.//DPA
