Sharjah 24 – AFP: The death toll in cyclone-hit Myanmar rose to at least 81 on Tuesday, according to local leaders, officials and state media, as villagers tried to piece together ruined homes and waited for aid and support.
Mocha made landfall on Sunday with winds of up to 195 kilometres (120 miles) per hour, downing power pylons and smashing wooden fishing boats to splinters.
At least 46 people died in the Rakhine state villages of Bu Ma and nearby Khaung Doke Kar, inhabited by the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, local leaders told AFP reporters at the scene.
Thirteen people were killed when a monastery collapsed in a village in Rathedaung township north of Rakhine's capital Sittwe, and a woman died when a building collapsed in a neighbouring village, according to Myanmar state broadcaster MRTV.
"There will be more deaths, as more than a hundred people are missing," said Karlo, the head of Bu Ma village near Sittwe.
State media had reported five deaths on Monday, without offering details.
Mocha was the most powerful cyclone to hit the area in more than a decade, churning up villages, uprooting trees and knocking out communications across much of Rakhine state.
China said it was "willing to provide emergency disaster relief assistance", according to a statement on its embassy in Myanmar's Facebook page.
The United Nations refugee office said it was investigating reports that Rohingya living in displacement camps had been killed in the storm.
It was "working to start rapid needs assessments in hard-hit areas" of Rakhine state, it added.
In neighbouring Bangladesh, officials told AFP that no one had died in the cyclone, which passed close to sprawling refugee camps that house almost one million Rohingya who fled a Myanmar military crackdown in 2017.
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