COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh -- Cyclone Mahasen struck the southern coast of Bangladesh on Thursday, lashing remote fishing villages with heavy rain and fierce winds that flattened mud and straw huts and forced the evacuation of more than 1 million people.

The main section of the storm reached land Thursday and immediately began weakening, according to Mohammad Shah Alam, director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department. However, its forward movement was also slowing, meaning that towns in its path would have to weather the storm for longer, he said.

Even before the brunt of the storm hit, at least 18 deaths related to Mahasen were reported in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

The U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had said Wednesday that depending on its trajectory, the storm could bring life-threatening conditions to about 8.2 million people in Bangladesh, Myanmar and northeast India. But the storm appeared to spare at least some areas once thought to be at risk.

In the seafront resort town of Cox's Bazar, tens of thousands of people had fled shanty homes along the coast and packed into cyclone shelters, hotels, schools and government office buildings. But by Thursday afternoon, the sun was shining and local government administrator Ruhul Amin said he planned to close the shelters by that evening.

Munir Uz Zaman / AFP - Getty Images

Bangladeshi pedestrians gather to watch the sea at a beach while Cyclone Mahasen heads toward landfall in Chittagong on Thursday.

"Thank God we have been spared this time," Amin said.

Mahasen hit land with maximum wind speeds of about 62 mph and quickly weakened to 56 mph, said Alam, the meteorological official.

Along Myanmar's western coast, danger was particularly high for tens of thousands of displaced Rohingya people living in plastic-roofed tents and huts made of reeds in dozens of refugee camps.

Gemunu Amarasinghe / AP

An internally displaced Rohingya man pushes a rickshaw with children and belongings leaving a camp for displaced Rohingya people in Sittwe, northwestern Rakhine State, in Myanmar on Thursday. Members of the displaced minority started moving to safer shelters ahead of the arrival of Cyclone Mahasen.

Driven from their homes by violence, some members of the Muslim minority group refused to follow evacuation orders. Many distrust officials in the majority-Buddhist country, where Rohingya have faced decades of discrimination.

U.N. officials, hoping they would inspire greater trust, fanned out across the area to encourage people to leave. They said Thursday that more than 35,000 people had been relocated.

In Bangladesh, river ferries and boat service were suspended, and scores of factories near the choppy Bay of Bengal were closed. The military said it was keeping 22 navy ships and 19 Air Force helicopters at the ready.

"We have seen such a disaster before," said Mohammad Abu Taleb, who shut down his convenience shop in Cox's Bazar, a city of 200,000. "It's better to stay home. I'm not taking any chance."

A 1991 cyclone that slammed into Bangladesh from the Bay of Bengal killed an estimated 139,000 people and left millions homeless. In 2008, Myanmar's southern delta was devastated Cyclone Nargis, which swept away entire farming villages and killed more than 130,000 people. Both those cyclones were much more powerful than Cyclone Mahasen, which is rated Category 1 — the weakest level.

Heavy rain and storm surge could prove deadlier than the wind. Bangladesh's meteorological office said the cyclone was moving so slowly it may take a whole day for it to pass the Bangladesh coast.

SITTWE, Myanmar -- A boat carrying about 100 Rohingya Muslims capsized off western Myanmar with many feared drowned at the start of a mass evacuation from low-lying regions ahead of an approaching storm, a U.N. official said on Tuesday.

The boat struck rocks off Pauktaw township in Rakhine State and sank late Monday, Barbara Manzi, head of the Myanmar office of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said.

She said an unknown number of people were missing.

A military intelligence officer said at least 50 people drowned when the boat went down at around midnight. It was one of six leaving Pauktaw, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Kirsten Mildren, a spokeswoman for OCHA in Bangkok, said she understood that a larger boat was towing two smaller, wooden boats without engines, and that 100 to 150 people were on the three vessels.

Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters

A boy dismantles his tent before moving to safer ground as a storm approaches Sittwe, Myanmar, on Tuesday.

"We understand that yesterday evening they went out with the approval of government officials. This was part of an official government evacuation plan, although the boats were not government boats. They were moving from a low-lying area to a safer area," she said.

The approaching storm is a tropical depression named Mahasen, which is expected to strengthen into a cyclone.

Forecasts by the U.S. Navy's Joint Warning Center show the storm making its way north over the Bay of Bengal. It is expected to make landfall on Thursday near Chittagong in Bangladesh before moving into neighboring Myanmar.

It threatens a region of Myanmar where about 140,000 victims of ethnic and religious unrest are living in camps. The United Nations warned last week that Myanmar could face a "humanitarian catastrophe" if people were not evacuated.

The United Nations said about 69,000 people, most of them Rohingya Muslims, were living in "precarious" conditions at risk of flooding and other damage during the rainy season, which begins this month and continues until around September. Mahasen could bring "life-threatening conditions," it said.

The evacuations, a combined effort between the government and aid agencies, are seen as a test of Myanmar's willingness to assist stateless Rohingya Muslims, an impoverished and long-persecuted people who bore the brunt of sectarian violence in Rakhine State last year.

Myanmar is a predominantly Buddhist country but about 5 percent of its 60 million people are Muslims. They face a growing anti-Muslim campaign led by radical Buddhist monks.

In 2008 a cyclone swept across Myanmar's Irrawaddy Delta, south of the old capital, Yangon, killing up to 140,000 people.

Related:

• 13 boys killed in Myanmar Islamic school fire
• PhotoBlog: Death toll rises in Myanmar religious riots
• More NBC News coverage from Myanmar

Damir Sagolj / Reuters

Muslims prepare to pray around the coffins of the victims of a fire during funerals at Yaeway cemetery in Yangon, Myanmar, Tuesday.

YANGON - A fire caused by faulty electrical equipment killed 13 boys at an Islamic school in Yangon on Tuesday, the fire service said, although some Muslims voiced concern since it came after a wave of anti-Muslim violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

The boys suffocated after the fire broke out in a dormitory of the school in the central, multi-ethnic Botataung district of the former capital at about 2:40 a.m. (4:10 p.m. ET on Monday), neighbors and officials said.

Yangon Region Fire Service said it was setting up a team to investigate the fire with the police, the electricity company and representatives from Muslim groups.

"The fire, caused by the overheating of the transformer placed under the staircase, spread, trapping the boys sleeping in the attic. As a result, 13 twelve-year-old boys died of suffocation after inhaling smoke," a duty fire officer said, reading from a statement.

Armed riot police cordoned off the area but the crowd that had assembled in the area remained peaceful.

According to official records, electrical faults and overheating are major causes of fires in Yangon.

But, against the background of the recent sectarian violence, many Muslims were "very suspicious" about the Yangon fire, said Mya Aye, a Muslim member of the 88 Generation Students' pro-democracy group.

"We are worried and sad because innocent children died," he said.

A funeral for the 13 boys was due to be held on Tuesday afternoon.

Yangon, by far the biggest city in Myanmar, escaped the anti-Muslim violence in March although authorities posted police outside mosques and ordered restaurants in some areas to close early on some evenings as a precaution. 

Related:

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Muslims vanish as Buddhist attacks approach Myanmar's biggest city

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Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters

Firemen attempt to extinguish fires during riots in Meikhtila, Myanmar, on March 22, 2013. Unrest between Buddhists and Muslims in central Myanmar has reduced neighborhoods to ashes and stoked fears that last year's sectarian bloodshed is spreading into the country's heartland in a test of Asia's newest democracy.

Nyein Chan Naing / EPA

A riot policeman stands guard next to a burning building in Meikhtila on March 22, 2013. A curfew was imposed for the second night as riots between Buddhists and Muslims continued.

By The Associated Press

MEIKHTILA, Myanmar — Myanmar President Thein Sein has declared a state of emergency in a central town where at least 20 people have been killed in violence between Buddhists and Muslims.

Burning fires from two days of Buddhist-Muslim violence smoldered across Meikhtila on Friday as residents cowered indoors amid growing fears the country's latest bout of sectarian bloodshed could spread.

The government's struggle to contain the unrest is proving another major challenge to Thein Sein's reformist administration as it attempts to chart a path to democracy after nearly half a century of military rule that once crushed all dissent. Read the full story.

Nyein Chan Naing / EPA

People carry their belongings as they arrive at a temporary rescue center in Meikhtila on March 22, 2013.

Soe Than Win / AFP - Getty Images

Residents sit on a railway track watching buildings burn around a mosque in riot-hit Meikhtila on March 21, 2013.

Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters

Burnt houses are seen in Meikhtila on March 21, 2013.

China Daily / Reuters

Drug lord Naw Kham is taken from a Chinese jail to be executed on Friday.

BEIJING – A notorious gang leader and drug lord from Myanmar was among four foreigners executed in China Friday, marking the first time Beijing has extradited, tried and put to death foreign nationals. 

Naw Kham and three accomplices from Thailand and Laos were given a lethal injection in Yunnan’s provincial capital, Kunming, late Friday afternoon.

The four were found guilty last year and sentenced Wednesday for the October 2011 hijacking of two cargo ships and the murder of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River.

But Beijing’s decision to live broadcast the final moments of the men as they waited in their cells followed by their walk to waiting police cars to the execution facility has drawn criticism across China’s websphere.

The four were additionally found guilty of smuggling drugs, kidnapping and hijacking cargo ships in the “Golden Triangle,” a section of territory that overlaps parts of Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos that accounts for much of Asia’s opium and methamphetamines production.

Beijing contends that, while Naw Kham masterminded the hijacking of the two Chinese cargo ships, he also colluded with Thai soldiers who may have been responsible for the slaying of the sailors. 

Thai authorities are investigating nine of their soldiers alleged to be involved in the incident.

The capture of Naw Kham – who was at the center of the region's bustling drug trade – was a coup for Chinese police and anti-drug ministries, which reportedly spent a year tracking the infamous smuggler.

The search was unprecedented as it marked the first time that Chinese forces were seen actively searching for foreign national criminal suspects outside of China’s borders.

Task force
The importance Beijing placed on the search was underscored by a report last month by Chinese state media that revealed a task force set up to capture Naw Kham had at one point considered a controversial plan to use an unmanned drone to bomb a suspected hideout of Naw Kham’s gang in northeastern Myanmar.   

The scheme was scrapped after the order to capture Naw Kham alive and bring him to trial was reiterated from senior leaders.

Naw Kham’s capture and subsequent trial was given significant coverage in Chinese state media. In the run up to Friday’s execution, long reports detailing the gang’s crimes, celebrating the diligent work of China’s security forces and explaining the method of execution were repeatedly played on Chinese broadcaster CCTV.

CCTV also ran two hours of live coverage leading up to the executions, showing the men’s final moments as they were led from their prison cells to execution facility. Despite rampant rumors and speculation that the state broadcaster was planning on showing the execution live, it ended its live coverage after the men were driven away.  

The magnitude of Naw Kham’s capture and execution was never underplayed, with one CCTV reporter noting that officials there were comparing Naw Kham’s case to the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

The comparison carries an undeniable message from the country’s ruling Communist Party to its people: China can and will look out for its nationals both at home and abroad.

But many in China found the live broadcast of the men’s final moments in poor taste and an uncomfortable reminder of show executions from China’s turbulent period during the Cultural Revolution.

“Even though they are deserved to die, these criminals have dignity too,” wrote one user on China’s Twitter-like service, Weibo, “The Cultural Revolution is back.”

“China is a country without humanity,” lamented another.

“CCTV is as cruel as these criminals,” one user bluntly noted. 

Mo Shaoping, a prominent criminal lawyer and advisor at the Central University of Finance and Economics Law School, argued that Beijing’s decision to broadcast the prisoners’ final moments was less about striking a nationalist chord and more about showing how the country has improved its handling of the death penalty – a sensitive topic for China’s leadership.

“China has made progress in how it deals with the death penalty,” Mo said. “showing everything live helps people see that prisoners are being treated humanely in their final moments.”

Indeed, much of the commentary on CCTV as cameras rolled on Naw Kham in his cell discussed how he had been given a full doctor’s inspection and that officers in the room had made small chat and offered cigarettes to the kingpin to help him relax.

They also noted that Naw had actually gained weight and looked healthier after months under Chinese supervision.

Mo also noted that the use of lethal injection mean that potential donor organs could not be harvested from the men, addressing another common criticism of China’s previous handling of state executions.

NBC News Le Li contributed to this report.

Stringer / Reuters

Soldiers stand at the crash site of a Air Bagan plane in Myanmar, Tuesday.

YANGON, Myanmar – A passenger jet missed an airport runway in heavy fog and landed in a rice paddy, killing two people on the ground and injuring 10, state television in Myanmar said Tuesday.

The pilot of the Air Bagan plane touched down beyond Heho airport in Shan state, killing an 11-year-old passenger and a motorcyclist on the ground, MRTV said.

Four foreigners and the pilot were among the injured. The plane was carrying 63 passengers, 51 of whom were foreigners. MRTV said.

Air Bagan is one of five airlines operating domestic routes in Myanmar.

Stringer / Reuters

People gather at the crash site of a Air Bagan plane in Myanmar, Tuesday.

Owned by Tay Za, a local tycoon blacklisted by the United States for his alleged links to former military regime, Air Bagan was the country's first privately run carrier when it was established in 2004.

Agence France Press (AFP) reported that the aircraft - one of two Fokker-100s in the Air Bagan fleet - was forced to make an emergency landing two miles from Heho airport, which is the gateway to the popular tourist destination of Inle Lake.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

A Rohingya girl carries water to her tent at an IDP (internally displaced peoples) camp on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 24, 2012.

Paula Bronstein, Getty Images — In Myanmar an estimated 111,000 people were displaced by sectarian violence in June and October. The violence affected mostly the ethnic Rohingya people who now live in crowded IDP camps racially segregated from the Rakhine Buddhists in order to maintain stability. Around 89 lives were lost during a week of violence in October, the worst in decades. As of 2012, 800,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar. The Rohingya are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, according to the United Nations.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Images made available to NBC News on Nov. 27

Kyaw Tin examines a woman named Mumtaz at a government-run medical clinic on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 25. Mumtaz was later taken to a local hospital.

A pregnant woman suffers from labor pains as foreign medical teams try to assist Rohingya in need at a makeshift medical clinic on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 25.

A worker builds new housing aimed at offering the Rohingya an alternative to tented IDP (internally displaced peoples) camps on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 25.

Aaisha sits with her 11-month-old baby Bibi at an IDP (internally displaced persons) camp on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 23.

Rohingya pray inside a makeshift mosque during Friday prayer at an IDP (internally displaced peoples) camp on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 23.

Gulzar looks out from her tent at a crowded IDP (internally displaced peoples) camp on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar, Nov. 25.

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YANGON, Myanmar -- U Ming Kyi affectionately tapped the hood of his dilapidated bus. “Of course I’ll be sad to see it go. They are really reliable. The brakes are great,” he said.

But on this particular morning, bus No. 61 from North Dagon to San Pya market was not cooperating. The engine screeched and smoked as U Ming sat behind the wheel, turning the key and willing it to life.

He gave up and glanced back at the passengers. As if on cue -- and clearly well practiced -- several jumped from the bus and began pushing until it spluttered, gasped, then finally roared to life.

Bus no 61 was on its way across the north of Yangon, as it has been for decades.

U Ming smiled gingerly. He has been driving these buses for 35 years, and keeping on the road what are possibly the oldest buses in the world still operating needs constant improvisation.

Ian Williams/NBC News

Driver U Ming Kyi at the wheel of bus number 61. He's been driving the Big Belly Chevy for 35 years.

In Myanmar they are called “big belly” buses and the chassis of no 61 was registered in 1939. Back then it was a military truck -- a Canada-built Chevy C-15. These were used by the United States, Britain and western allies during the "Burma Campaign" -- the southeast Asia theater of World War II.

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After the conflict, Myanmar’s military regime converted them into buses. The makeshift vehicles quickly became the mainstay of a transport system that resembled until recently an antiques show on wheels.

But in a sign of the rapid wider changes sweeping this country, they have been banned from the increasingly traffic-clogged center of Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, and are being phased out to be replaced by shiny new Japanese models.

Ian Williams/NBC News

Passengers packed on board bus number 61. Big Belly Bus.

The price of an old “big belly” has suddenly gone through the roof -- not because of the vehicle, which is off to the junk yard, but because of the valuable operating license that goes with it.

If he had the money, U Ming would buy one himself. “The new ones just won’t be the same,” he said. He can read every crunch, bang and hiss -- of which there are many on a bumpy, shaky ride across the city.

Like most vehicles here, the “big belly” is right-hand drive, a legacy of British rule when traffic drove on the left. Yet the traffic in Myanmar now drives on the right, as in the United States, which means drivers like U Ming spend a good deal of their time straining to see what is coming at them.

Former dictator Ne Win made the switch after seizing power in 1962. Some say it was an anti-colonial gesture. Others put it down to his notorious superstition: Britain’s Daily Telegraph said he took the decision after consulting a wizard.

Ian Williams/NBC News

The interior of a Big Belly Bus.

That these buses operated for so long, patched together with whatever parts were available during years of isolation and sanctions, is testament to the ingenuity of men like U Ming.

All is not lost, though. Long-time Italian resident Alberto Peyre has bought three and given them a luxurious face lift to serve the country's tourism boom.

“They are a piece of history, a piece of history,” he said, as immaculately dressed attendants handed us cold towels as we sat in expensively upholstered seats for a mini-tour of the city.

“I love these buses. I just love them,” he said.

Peyre’s company, Elephant Coach, is marketing tours as “the ultimate luxury in overland travel.” It’s a long way from the U Ming’s no 61, but it will ensure that these remarkable old machines will not entirely disappear from the streets of Myanmar.

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Nicolas Asfouri / AFP - Getty Images

Supporters of President Barack Obama and Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi line the road outside Yangon University and wave after a convoy carrying Obama and Suu Kyi pass on Monday.

YANGON, Myanmar --  Allison Morris stood in front of a crowded conference room in a downtown Yangon hotel and introduced a pair of would-be entrepreneurs called Team Optimist on Sunday, the eve of President Barack Obama's visit to Myanmar.

The team -- which lived up to their name -- then explained how they wanted to set up a sort of employment agency to bring back to Myanmar the skilled people who have fled or been forced abroad over the last five decades of military rule and economic stagnation.

Another couple then made a pitch for a recycling business, followed by a commercial college to teach traditional dance.

'New chapter': Obama makes history in Myanmar

"There's so much enthusiasm here," Morris told NBC News. She's an American, raised mostly in Asia, who moved here in August to set up Project Hub Yangon, designed to identify, encourage and launch young entrepreneurs, and the pitches were part of a contest she'd organized.

Her venture is based on a business model that grew out of the United States, mostly in Silicon Valley.

"Where else," she asked, "would they sell copies of the new foreign investment laws at traffic junctions -- alongside newspapers and soft drinks?"

She was referring to the new rules governing business investment here, which rather than gathering dust in a government office have been so eagerly sought after that they're being stocked and sold by the Yangon's street hawkers.

Indeed, after years of isolation, change has come to Myanmar. Obama, an embodiment of that change, on Monday became the first U.S. president to visit the country.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Obama speaks at Yangon University on Monday.

He was greeted by enthusiastic crowds in the former capital Yangon, and met President Thein Sein, a former junta member who has spearheaded reforms since taking office in March 2011, and opposition leader and fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Another one of those in the audience of Morris’ event was Naureen Nayyar, a Burmese-American blogger who covers the tech scene. "I can't believe they're pitching real ideas," she said. "In Silicon Valley, it’s all apps."

In the gloom of dusk, at a nearby traffic circle workmen raised the U.S. and Myanmar flags alternately on flagpoles. From a distance it looked like that historic photograph, "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima." In its own way this too was historic, something that simply couldn't have been imagined just two years back.

PhotoBlog: In reforming Myanmar, junta mouthpiece gets makeover

Also almost unbelievable was the scene a little further down the road -- a fashion show, complete with thumping music and flashing lights. It was grandly titled "The Myanmar Internal Fashion Week" and claimed to be the first and biggest show of its kind in the country.

It took place outside a shiny new shopping mall.

The show was packed. Crowds of people -- curious, bewildered even -- carried children on their shoulders, and strained for a glimpse of a show that ranged from scantily-clad young women in tight shorts to lavish wedding dresses.  

PhotoBlog: Models prepare for a fashion show in Myanmar

Myanmar is changing fast, from the crowded roads to the buzz of new business activity. 

Critics of the Obama’s visit say it is premature when so much remains to be done.

But if you look at where it stood just two years ago, the change after decades of isolation is still astounding --  from the release of political prisoners (with more just ahead of Obama's visit) to greater press freedom. And of course the release of Aung San Suu Kyi along with her election as a member of parliament and partner in the reform process.

Suu Kyi's journey to global icon: A heartbreaking tale of personal sacrifice

It was appropriate that Obama chose Yangon University for a speech Tuesday. You could smell the fresh paint and lacquer after the authorities gave the dilapidated main hall a face lift for the occasion.

The university, long a center of protest and consequent repression, has seen it all -- hope, despair, and neglect. It played a key role in the independence movement and uprising against the generals, for which the students paid dearly.

More recently what was once one of the most famous and best regarded educational institutions in Asia was virtually closed by the military. Now there are hopes that it can restore its former glory. 

America's 'Pacific president'? Obama opens first post-election trip with visit to Thailand

Myanmar's renaissance will depend on rebuilding a shattered education system.

At the entrance of the university, where the military once hoisted Orwellian slogans, there are huge billboards advertising shoes, perfume and a line of fashion called Step. "Step into the future," reads the slogan.

PhotoBlog: Obama's trip to Myanmar

Nearby, a group of policemen and security officials stood around chatting. One of their cellphones rang. The ringtone was "Gangnam Style," the South Korean pop song that became an international sensation earlier this year.

They didn't dance, but if they had it wouldn't have been surprising -- such is the almost surreal pace of change in Myanmar.

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