Dark clouds started to gather on the horizon near Teknaf yesterday morning and soon they covered the entire sky. The wind picked up as well. Four-month pregnant Setara Begum took a quick glance at her three-year-old daughter in her arms and paced towards Hariakhali on a muddy road. She then looked at Senawara, her seven-year-old daughter trailing behind, and said, "Walk faster ma. It may rain anytime."

Setara had reached mainland Bangladesh on a boat only a few minutes ago. The woman from Bagguna of Maungdaw in Myanmar had reached Shah Porir Dwip of Teknaf the previous night.

Her boat had many more fellow Rohingyas fleeing persecution across the border and they headed towards Hariakhali.

First a few drops and then the heavens opened. Some women tried to cover their infants with their veils while others with towels.

Barefoot, Setara and her daughter stopped, looked around for cover and then kept on moving again like the others heading towards Hariakhali.

The people on the muddy road were carrying and dragging whatever they could bring from their homes across the border.

"Our home was torched and my husband was killed 12 days ago. I could not bring anything except this bag," Setera told The Daily Star correspondents pointing to a small bag Senawara was carrying.

Senawara's wet and flimsy dress was sticking to her body and her lips were trembling in the cold.

"My elderly mother and brother will come here soon," Setara said.

Like Setara, hundreds of Rohingyas poured into Bangladesh yesterday braving the inclement weather.

A coordination camp of the Bangladesh Army in Hariakhali recorded 500 new arrivals in three hours at 9:30am yesterday. But as the day progressed, more Rohingyas showed up on boats.

The local union chairman put the figure at 3,000 yesterday.

The famished, scared and exhausted Rohingyas were assembled at the camp in Hariakhali Govt Primary School so that they could be sent to the designated Rohingya camps in Ukhia upazila of Cox's Bazar.

They endured a treacherous journey to Bangladesh and the rain and strong winds only made things worse. Fifteen Rohingyas died yesterday when their boat sank in the Bay.

"We fled with the clothes we were wearing. Now we are all drenched in the rain. I extremely worried about my children," said Munshi Mia, who along with his five children arrived in Teknaf yesterday.

At the temporary shelters set up on the hill slopes of Ukhia, rain brought unthinkable misery.

Water got into the shacks the Rohingyas built making the floors muddy.

Pointing to the floor in a shack, Mohammad Jaber, a refugee at the Balukhali camp, said, "You see the place is all muddy. Rainwater rolls down from the hills. This is where we have to sleep at night."

Yards away, Nur Begum was trying to get her six-year-old son dry. "He was out there with his father to get relief and got wet," she said.

A huge number of Rohingyas were crammed into the designated place for relief distribution. The place was fenced and they were all soaking wet.

Many of the women in the queue had children in their arms.

Rain disrupted relief distribution too.

A relief material distributor said delivering relief in a disciplined manner was a challenging job given the huge number of people and the rain made their job more difficult.

Ahsan, a refugee at Balukhali, said he had been trying to get relief materials since early morning but he only got wet.

"We got drenched several times. We need food," he said.

Eighty-year-old Badiur Rahman said he could not even go to collect relief materials because of the rain.

"Standing amid the huge crowd of people at this age is extremely difficult. And if it rains, I dare not go there … I'll try to collect when it stops raining," said the elderly man as dark clouds started to gather again in the afternoon sky.