A new storm forecast to be the strongest to hit Myanmar in more than a decade is expected to make landfall near the Bangladesh border on Sunday, raising the prospect of a major humanitarian disaster.
The storm, Cyclone Mocha, formed over the southern Bay of Bengal on Thursday and has already started drenching western Myanmar as it churned northeast on Friday, with heavy rain, strong winds and storm surges forecast to continue through Sunday, according to the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System.
Myanmar and Bangladesh began deploying thousands of volunteers and ordering evacuations from low-lying areas, Agence France-Presse reported, in a region that is home to some of the world’s poorest people, who are especially vulnerable to increasingly severe weather events.
The storm’s sustained winds of 75 miles per hour, recorded on Friday, were expected to strengthen to 110 m.p.h. by the time it made landfall, forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. After landfall,…
This article was written by John Yoon and originally published on www.nytimes.com