'Nightmare scenario' as hundreds of thousands of refugees in path of cyclone

May 14 (UPI) -- Humanitarian agencies are bracing for the worst as powerful Cyclone Mocha and its Category 5 winds made landfall in Myanmar on Sunday before heading toward the world's largest refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

Mocha intensified as it reached Myanmar's west coast with winds up to 161 mph with gust topping out at 195 mph, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. The Bangladesh Meteorological Department said the storm is expected to travel north-northeasterly across Rakhine State in Myanmar and cross Cox's Bazar with hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Sanjeev Kafley, of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Bangladesh Delegation, said that disaster response teams and more than 3,000 local volunteers are attending to refugees' needs in Cox Bazar camps.

"We expect this cyclone to have a more severe impact than any other natural disaster they have faced in the past five years," said Arjun Jain, U.N. Principal Coordinator for the Rohingya Refugee Response in Bangladesh.

"At this stage, we just don't know where the cyclone will make landfall and with what intensity. So, we are hoping for the best but are preparing for the worst."

Officials said about 500,000 already have been evacuated. Heavy rain and winds slammed the region as the storm system moved to the coast Sunday afternoon.

United Nations Humanitarian coordinator AI Ramanathan Balakrishnan said the threat of Mocha on Cox Bazar could not come at a worse time.

"For a cyclone to hit an area where there is already such deep humanitarian need is a nightmare scenario, impacting hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people whose coping capacity has been severely eroded by successive crises," said Balakrishnan.