Heavy rain and strong winds battered coastal districts of Odisha and West Bengal as the super cyclone Amphan hurtled towards the coasts on Wednesday morning.
Trees were uprooted and power infrastructure suffered damage following strong wind in Odisha.
The port town of Paradip recorded the highest wind speed of 106 kmph followed by Chandbali with 74 kmph, Balasore 59 kmph and Bhubaneswar 56 kmph.
Similarly, Paradip registered 197.1 mm rainfall and Puri and Chandbali followed with 82 mm and 74 mm respectively.
The weatherman said when ‘Amphan’ makes the landfall between West Bengal’s Digha, some 180 km from Kolkata, and Hatiya island in Bangladesh on Wednesday afternoon or evening, it will pack sustained wind speed of 155 to 165 kmph, gusting at 185 kmph.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said around three lakh people have been evacuated from the coastal areas in the state, while around one lakh people were shifted to cyclone shelters in Odisha.
41 teams of the National Disaster Response Force, including seven reserves, have been deployed in the two states, its chief S N Pradhan said in New Delhi.
15 NDRF teams are deployed and five are in reserve in seven districts of Odisha, while 19 teams were actively deployed and two in reserve in six West Bengal districts, he said.
The authorities were mindful of the difficulty they could face in ensuring social distancing norms at shelters following a surge in COVID-19 cases over the last few days.
Due to social-distancing protocols in the wake of coronavirus, the cyclone rescue centres having a capacity to hold about 1,000 people will have only 400-500 people, Pradhan said.
Post Your Comments