Nearly 200 killed in Myanmar boat accident

Naypyidaw. Boats carrying about 200 Rohingya Muslims who were evacuating ahead of a storm capsised off western Myanmar, killing all but one person, UN officials have said.The vessels hit trouble on Monday night after leaving Pauktaw township in Rakhine state, said a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).“They were travelling to another camp ahead of the cyclone,” the spokeswoman added.Kirsten Mildren, who works for the same UN agency, told Al Jazeera there was only one confirmed survivor from Monday’s accident.The victims were trying to escape Cyclone Mahasen which is expected on Thursday and Friday. The UN has warned the storm could lead to “life-threatening conditions”.Myanmar state television said on Monday that thousands of people displaced by communal violence last year had been evacuated from makeshift camps to safer ground in the event of the storm.The report said authorities had moved 5,158 people from low-lying camps in the Rakhine state capital, Sittwe, to safer shelter.But human rights groups said that the government has been too slow to act, and ignored earlier warnings to provide shelter to displaced people.“The Burmese government didn’t heed the repeated warnings by governments and humanitarian aid groups to relocate displaced Muslims ahead of Burma’s rainy season,” said Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch Asia director. “If the government fails to evacuate those at risk, any disaster that results will not be natural, but man-made,” he said.Al Jazeera’s Wayne Hay, reporting from Sittwe, said: “The eye of the storm is not expected to hit Myanmar, but the people in camps - home to more than 100,000 - are extremely vulnerable to conditions we may see over the next few days.”“These include strong winds, heavy rains and a possible surge from the ocean of up to 1.5 metres. The local government has been moving people ... but people in camps aren’t trusting what they are trying to get them to do. Some say they are being asked to move to more dangerous places,” our correspondent said.