Cyclone Threat To Bangladesh And Burma

Hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh and Burma have been ordered to move to safety to avoid a cyclone travelling towards low-lying coastal areas.

The UN is warning that more than eight million people may be at risk from Cyclone Mahasen, which is expected to reach land on Thursday or Friday somewhere near the border between the two countries.

Bangladesh's Chittagong and Cox's Bazar areas could face the worst of a tidal surge and heavy rains.

Cox's Bazar, a long strip of coastline, is home to tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees who have moved from Rakhine across the border in Burma after being made homeless by communal unrest last year.

Local authorities in Bangladesh said 113 medical teams had been mobilised to deal with the impact of the cyclone and leave has been cancelled for all government employees.

"We've made all the preparations to face the cyclone," said local official Mohammed Kamruzzaman.

"We have been using loudspeakers to alert both documented and undocumented Rohingya refugees of the dangers of the cyclone.

"We've also stockpiled dry food, kept medical teams and ambulances on stand-by and shifted the sick and pregnant women from the camps to hospitals."

Cyclone Mahasen was classified as the lowest-level category one on a one-to-five scale, with winds of up to 88 kilometres (55 miles) per hour at its centre.

As a category one storm, it could unleash a storm surge of up to seven feet (two metres) high in the low-lying coastal areas and create damage in other areas.

Experts say Bangladesh is better prepared to handle cyclones than authorities across the border in Rakhine.

Burma state media on Tuesday confirmed that 58 Rohingya had drowned when their boat capsized after hitting rocks in a coastal waterway while they were trying to escape to higher ground.

A number of other Rohingya in Myanmar say they do not want to move, reflecting deep mistrust of security forces following two outbreaks of violence last year that left about 200 people dead and whole neighbourhoods destroyed.

Human rights groups have accused Burmese security forces of complicity in the unrest.

They have also criticised the country for failing to provide permanent housing sooner for displaced Rohingya, after months of warnings of the danger posed to the camps by this year's monsoon.