Daily Times

The death toll in cyclone-hit Myanmar rose to 60 on Tuesday, according to local leaders and junta-backed media, as villagers tried to piece together ruined homes and waited for aid and support.

Packing winds of up to 195 kilometres (120 miles) per hour, Mocha made landfall on Sunday, downing power pylons and smashing wooden fishing boats to splinters.

In Rakhine state, at least 41 people died in the 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.

Nearby, Aa Bul Hu Son, 66, said prayers at the grave of his daughter, whose body was recovered on Tuesday morning.

“I wasn’t in good health before the cyclone, so we were delayed in moving to another place,” he told AFP.

“While we were thinking about moving, the waves came immediately and took us.”

“I just found her body in the lake in the village and buried her right away. I can’t find any words to express my loss.”

Other residents walked the seashore searching for family members swept away by a storm surge that accompanied the cyclone, AFP correspondents said.

State media had reported five deaths on Monday, without offering details.

Mocha was the most powerful cyclone to hit the area in over 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 the Facebook page of its embassy in Myanmar.