SITTWE — A man was killed and his wife was injured in a storm in Rakhine State, according to the local Fire Service Department.
U Pyae Tun, 78, was killed and his wife, Daw Saw Mra Oo, was injured when a tree fell on their house in the village of Hmaw Daw Oo in Manaung Township on Tuesday morning.
The wife was still being treated at a local hospital in the township for minor injuries, said the head of the state’s Fire Service Department, U Thaw Dar.
“I heard that the storm has subsided after moving across Manaung,” U Thaw Dar told The Irrawaddy.
The Fires Service Department has prepared teams of 35 in each of Rakhine’s 17 townships for emergency rescue work. It was still raining heavily from the storm in Sittwe, the state capital, through Tuesday evening.
Many people in a camp for displaced Hindu families in Maungdaw Township were also without adequate shelter, said camp supervisor U Ni Mal.
“Of the 16 buildings in the camp, six have no roof. We have to bear the weather, rain or shine. We have reported to the authorities, but they did nothing,” U Ni Mal told The Irrawaddy.
The Irrawaddy was not able to contact the Rakhine State government to ask about the measures it was taking to cope with the storm.
The Department of Meteorology and Hydrology announced Tuesday morning that the storm in the Bay of Bengal would cross the Rakhine coast within 12 hours and has issued a level red storm warning.
It said the maximum wind speed could reach 50 miles per hour when the storm crosses the Rakhine coast between Sittwe and Kyaukphyu and that tidal waves could reach seven feet in height along the coasts of Manaung, Kyaukphyu and Sittwe and three feet in height along the coast of Irrawaddy Region.
Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
