Remarks by the Humanitarian Coordinator a.i, Mr. Ramanathan Balakrishnan, Delivered from Yangon to media briefing for correspondents at the Palais des Nations, Geneva

Thank you for this opportunity to throw some light on the humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding in Myanmar in the aftermath of the Extremely Severe Cyclone Mocha that hit Rakhine State with brutal force around noon on Sunday.

The cyclone was packing winds of 250 km per hour as it approached the coast, ripping off roofs, uprooting trees, bringing down powerlines and smashing fishing boats.

It was a truly terrifying experience for those in the path of the cyclone, many thousands of whom had taken refuge in evacuation shelters and now face a massive clean-up and a huge reconstruction effort ahead.

One of the people affected in Sittwe recalled his harrowing experience. He said his house was battered from every direction and that the hours the cyclone was hitting the house felt like ages.

It was, in many ways, a perfect storm with higher intensity than we expected.

Some people moved inland to locations away from the coast to avoid the cyclone, but they were also heavily impacted and have found it difficult to return to Sittwe because of blocked roads and heavy damage.

Just to give you an idea of the force of this cyclone a huge metal telecommunications tower was literally bent in half by the wind gusts.

Severe storm surge also followed the cyclone with metres of water inundating Sittwe, the Rakhine state capital, inundating homes and destroying bridges.

After hitting the coast, the storm also moved inland bringing wind, heavy rain and flooding to other states and regions in the Northwest where there are more than a million people already displaced by conflict. We are aware that there have been houses destroyed in Chin State but hope to know more during the next days.

Some limited satellite communications with teams on the ground were gradually restored during the day yesterday. Slowly we are getting some connectivity with the mobile links.

First reports from colleagues described scenes of devastation in Sittwe with no house being spared damage and the displacement camps in splinters.

We are yet to get a full picture of the damage elsewhere in the cyclone’s path but we fear for the worst of course, given that the majority of shelters in this very impoverished part of the country are mostly made of bamboo and they stood little chance in the face of these winds.

One of the IDP camp leaders who talked to our humanitarian teams in Sittwe has indicated that the storm hit the camps hard this time, causing destruction and washing away shelters and latrines. They said their immediate needs are shelter, clean water and sanitation.

More broadly, health, relief items, shelter, and water, sanitation and hygiene support are already emerging as early priorities with a high risk of waterborne and communicable diseases as evacuees are living in huge numbers in small spaces.

Despite many of their own homes being badly destroyed, our humanitarian teams are standing by to begin assessments and we hope that they will get the access they need to start the assessments as soon as possible.

Humanitarian colleagues spent last week preparing by pre-positioning personnel and commodities around the affected area.

Let’s talk some numbers….

To give you an idea of the likely scale of the emergency we are facing, as the cyclone cut a swathe through Rakhine and the Northwest, 5.4 million people are expected to have been in the path of the cyclone facing winds in excess of 90 km per hour.

Of these, we consider 3.1 million people to be most vulnerable to cyclone impacts by taking together indicators of shelter quality, food insecurity and of course poor coping capacity.

It really is a nightmare scenario for this cyclone to hit areas with such deep pre-existing needs.

These are some of the poorest parts of the country where people are still reeling from the cumulative crisis of COVID, conflict, political and economic upheaval. They are now also on the frontline of the climate crisis.

Coping capacities are really stretched to the limit and the needs for humanitarian support will be extremely high.

We have a massive task ahead.

To deliver, we will need access to affected people, relaxation of travel authorization by the authorities, require expedited customs clearances for commodities.

Of course, we will also need a huge infusion of funds to respond to this massive need.

Our Humanitarian Response Plan is less than 10 per cent funded as it stands now, and we simply will not be able to respond to these additional needs from the cyclone and continue our existing response across the country without more financial support from donors.

It is worth remembering that 17.6 million people were already in humanitarian need in Myanmar, even before this disaster. To put that in perspective, that is the same number of people in humanitarian need as in Ukraine and it is only likely to increase once we have fully assessed the impact of the cyclone.

We hope to have more details to share with you in the coming days as the response effort ramps up and as our teams are deployed for assessments.

But for now, I want to say that the situation in Rakhine is extremely serious and the UN is ready to help all the communities through this, wherever they are.