Cyclone rips into Bangladesh after mass evacuations

CHITTAGONG: A cyclone ripped into the Bangladeshi coast on Thursday as hundreds of thousands of people hunkered down in evacuation shelters including in a region of Myanmar torn by communal unrest.

One person died as Cyclone Mahasen hit Bangladesh's southern Patuakhali coast, officials said, while heavy rains and strong winds also lashed neighbouring Myanmar's northwest coast, home to tens of thousands of displaced Muslim Rohingya.

Weather officials in Bangladesh said that Mahasen was likely to whip the heavily populated coastline stretching from Bangladesh's second city Chittagong to the Cox's Bazaar tourist region in the afternoon.

But fears of widespread damage receded as Mahasen appeared to have lost some of its power after languishing over the Bay of Bengal for several days, and made landfall packing winds of up to 90 kilometres (56 miles) per hour.

"Cyclone Mahasen started crossing the Patuakhali coast at 9:00 am (0300 GMT) Thursday," Shamsuddun Ahmed, deputy director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department, told.

"It is not a severe cyclone. It did not gain strength in the last part of its journey as it hit the coast," said Ahmed.

"Its centre is still in the Bay of Bengal and will hit the Chittagong coast in the afternoon."

Provincial administrator Nurul Amin told one man had drowned in a lake in a coastal district as heavy rains battered the region while low-lying areas were submerged by a one-metre (three-foot) storm surge.

About 800,000 people spent the night in more than 2,000 cyclone shelters as well as schools and colleges along Bangladesh's long coastline.

Of the total, 600,000 people alone were evacuated in the Chittagong region, provincial administrator Mohammad Abdullah told.

"We have enough food, medicine and other facilities in these shelters," he said, adding that the armed forces are on standby to help if needed.