Cyclone Mahasen buffets Bangladesh coast, five dead

CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh (Reuters) - Cyclone Mahasen buffeted Bangladesh's low-lying coast on Thursday, bearing down on the ports of Chittagong and Cox's Bazar, as tens of thousands of people huddled in shelters from a storm the United Nations says threatens 4.1 million people.

Winds of up to 100 kph (60 mph) lashed the coast and whipped up waves, with an expected 2.1 metres (seven foot) storm surge and heavy rain likely to cause widespread flooding.

Media reports said five people were killed, some by falling trees, and thousands of rickety huts were destroyed as the storm brought torrential rain.

"We have shifted most of the people who are vulnerable," said Muhammad Abdullah, administration chief for the coastal area, adding that about 1 million people had been moved into hundreds of cyclone shelters. "We had to force some because they refused to leaves their homes."

Bangladesh, where storms have in the past killed many people, has more than 1,400 cyclone-proof buildings.

But across its south-eastern border in Myanmar, tens of thousands of people on the coast were sheltering in camps and huts made of timber and palm fronds.

In 2008, Cyclone Nargis killed up to 140,000 people in Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta, south of the main city, Yangon.

Cyclone Mahasen moved in across the bay of Bengal and first hit Khepupara on Bangladesh's southern coast, then weakened as it tracked northeast towards the two ports near Myanmar.

The streets of Chittagong, the country's second city, were almost deserted before the storm hit. Shops were shuttered and roads were empty except for a few cars and rickshaws. The port in Chittagong and Cox's Bazar airport were closed on Wednesday.

Witnesses said low-lying coastal areas were covered in waist-deep water as the storm crossed and trees were uprooted and houses damaged.

Bangladesh raised its storm warning to seven, on a scale up to 10, as Mahasen approached one of the poorest countries in Asia.

The storm killed at least seven people and displaced 3,881 in Sri Lanka as it tracked across the Bay of Bengal towards Bangladesh.

"As per the latest storm trajectory, 4.1 million people have been identified as living in at risk areas in the districts of Chittagong and Cox's Bazar," said the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Meteorologists said Mahasen should weaken quickly into a tropical rain depression over land.

"Mudslides will also be a concern as the heavy rain spreads farther north and east on Thursday night and Friday into easternmost India and northern Myanmar," said meteorologists at Accuweather.com storm forecasters.

"PEOPLE ARE AFRAID"

The U.S.-based Tropical Storm Risk said Mahasen should track northeast after hitting Chittagong, missing Myanmar.

Myanmar's government had planned to move 38,000 internally displaced people by Tuesday from camps in Rakhine State in the west, most of them Rohingya Muslims who lost their homes in 2012 during violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingyas.

Many had refused to relocate, afraid of the authorities' intentions and unwilling to get into military trucks, but they changed their minds after strong wind and rain on Wednesday night.

At a camp by Hmanzi Junction near the state capital of Sittwe, a Reuters reporter saw Rohingya loading their belongings into trucks provided by humanitarian groups, the U.N. refugee agency and the government.

Barbara Manzi, head of OCHA in Myanmar, said women and children were moving to shelters in a nearby village, while the men would stay at the camp.

At the Ohn Taw camp at sea level by Sittwe, displaced people were loading their possessions onto trishaw taxis and carts to move to a nearby village. Others were going on foot, carrying pots, mats and blankets.

"People are afraid of losing their place here. They didn't want to go to another place, so they didn't want to go with the soldiers," said Nabi Husain, 36.

Myanmar is a mainly Buddhist country but about 5 percent of its 60 million people are Muslims, including the Rohingya, who are denied citizenship and considered by many Buddhists to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

They face a growing anti-Muslim campaign led by radical Buddhist monks. A Reuters Special Report found apartheid-like policies were segregating Muslims from Buddhists in Rakhine State.

(Additional reporting by Jared Ferrie in SITTWE, Serajul Quadir and Ruma Paul in DHAKA; Writing by John Chalmers and Alan Raybould; Editing by Robert Birsel)