by Peerzada Arshad Hamid
NEW DELHI, May 25 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in India's eastern states of West Bengal and Odisha have begun to evacuate people from highly prone areas ahead of Cyclone Yaas, officials said on Tuesday.
The evacuations are likely to be completed before the arrival of Yaas, which is predicted to hit the West Bengal-Odisha coast on Wednesday noon.
According to officials, people were evacuated in the Chandipur area of Odisha's Balasore district by the local administration and marine police force. The government officials were seen making announcements on loudspeakers, urging people to move to safer locations ahead of the cyclone.
"We will shift people to shelters by this evening and we have made proper arrangements of sanitization and urge people to wear face masks in wake of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic," an official said.
Similar announcements were being made in Digha area of East Medinipur district in West Bengal's by officials from India's National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel since Monday. Officials said the worst affected would be the coastal districts of East Midnapore, South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said at a time when they were fighting COVID-19, another challenge has come up.
He said his government was fully prepared to deal with the cyclone and urged people in cyclone-prone areas to move to shelter homes and cooperate with the administration.
"Odisha has always performed well during natural disasters thanks to the cooperation of the general public, panchayat (village committee) representatives and civil society friends. So once again I am confident that we will all work together to fight the two dangers of the storm Yaas and COVID-19 and we must win," Patnaik said.
In the adjacent state of West Bengal, the local government has directed officials to make advance planning to ensure the early evacuation of people and operations of relief and rehabilitation.
The authorities have set control rooms and asked fishermen to immediately return from the sea.
"The chief minister has reviewed disaster management preparedness with regards to the impending Yaas cyclone with all senior officers," an official in Kolkata said. "The government is constantly monitoring the situation."
Reports said around a million people are likely to be evacuated and put in shelters in the affected areas of West Bengal ahead of the cyclone.
Meanwhile, the severe cyclonic storm Yaas is likely to intensify further into a very serious cyclonic storm during the next 12 hours.
The cyclone, centred at about 390 km from Paradeep and 490 km from Baleshwar in Odisha, was moving at a speed of about 10 kmph, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD). It is expected to cross the North Odisha-West Bengal coast around Balasore in Odisha at around noon on Wednesday.
The IMD said the cyclonic storm is expected to make landfall with heavy to extremely heavy rainfall, storms surging from 3 to 4 meters and wind speed gusting up to 185 kmph.
Director-General of NDRF S.N. Pradhan said 112 teams were being airlifted from different parts of the country and deployed in Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand and Andaman and Nicobar Islands in view of Cyclone Yaas.
Reports said many areas in over half the total districts of Odisha, have been experiencing mild to moderate winds along with sporadic rainfall of varying degrees between drizzle and downpour since Monday afternoon.
Last week, Cyclone Tauktae wreaked havoc and caused deaths in Karnataka, Goa and Kerala Maharashtra.
The death toll on barge P305 which sank off Mumbai during Cyclone Tauktae fury rose to 70 on Sunday with the recovery of four more bodies. Enditem