The Burmese government has put out a warning to evacuate boats on its western Bay of Bengal coast as an “orange level” storm heads for Burma.

The storm, classed as moderate, will hit the eastern coast within the next 36 hours, the government’s Meteorology and Hydrology Department (MHD) warned today.

According to Xinhua news, a low-pressure spot is building around 288 kilometers southwest of Arakan state’s Kyaukphyu and is set to intensify.

A Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) alert said that the chances of it becoming CAT 1, which means Severe Cyclonic Storm strength with winds of at least 119 km/h, is 10 percent in the next 36 hours, while there is a 50 percent chance it’ll become a tropical storm with winds above 63km/h.

A broadcast by on Burmese state radio that rain and thunderstorms are likely to be widespread in Arakan state, which has already been hit by heavy rains this month.

A number of towns in Burma are still picking up the pieces from severe flooding in recent weeks. Mandalay experienced record rainfall that submerged urban areas and left 2000 people hospitalised, while swathes of farmland in southern Irrawaddy division were inundated with rainfall.

It has become one of the worst sequences of flooding in Burma in recent history and follows heavy flooding in August in Bago division.