Bangladesh authorities have evacuated hundreds of thousands of people from the Cox’s Bazar coast to temporary storm shelters as the deadly Cyclone Sitrang made landfall in the country.
Mamunur Rashid, the deputy commissioner of Cox’s Bazar, said that 28,155 people and 2,736 cattle had been evacuated from the Cox’s Bazar coast before the cyclone made landfall, and 576 temporary shelters had been prepared.
No major damage was reported in refugee camps in southeast Bangladesh, where more than a million ethnic Rohingya refugees from neighboring Burma (also known as Myanmar) are living in flimsy shelters.
Humanitarian aid organization CARE said the cyclone could cause a “medium to major humanitarian impact” in Bangladesh, given its maximum sustained wind speed and the exposed population, including the Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar.
Nearly 32,000 Rohingya refugees who have relocated to a flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal were instructed to stay indoors. Heavy rain fell on the streets of the capital, Dhaka, causing some flooding and disruption to commuters.