Powerful Cyclone Mahasen is threatening Myanmar and Bangladesh.  Myanmar's government is urging tens of thousands of people to evacuate coastal areas.

Myanmar's Meteorology Department says the storm is heading northeast in the Bay of Bengal, and is expected to make landfall on the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh late Thursday or early Friday.

Myanmar's government has set up an anti-disaster task force headed by the vice president and is urging people to evacuate coastal areas.

But, Muslim Rohingya refugees in Rakhine state in Myanmar are too scared to move, because of their deep mistrust of authorities and their former neighbors who drove them out of their homes.  The Buddhist versus Muslim bloodshed claimed dozens of lives last year.

They live in camps in low-lying areas along the coast of western Myanmar that are prone for flooding when the storm surge pushes the tide up a couple of meters.

Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar’s southern delta in 2008.  It left more than 130,000 people dead or unaccounted for.