- Friday, February 28, 2025
The storm took a severe toll on the supply of electricity in the state as heavy rain and strong winds uprooted more than 520 trees and electric poles.
By: Shubham Ghosh
TWO PERSONS were killed while 22 were injured as Cyclone Biparjoy wreaked havoc in the western Indian state of Gujarat on Thursday (15), leaving a trail of destruction with uprooted trees, electricity poles and damaged houses and vehicles. The cyclone, which has been named by Bangladesh and means ‘disaster’ in Bengali, is likely to weaken into a depression over Rajasthan on Friday (16) evening, the India Meteorological Department said.
The deceased included a cattle-rearer and his son who died while trying to save their goats stuck in a flooded ravine in Bhavnagar district. However, a top official said they died in a district which was not hit by the cyclone and hence their deaths were not related to it.
The storm took a severe toll on the supply of electricity as heavy rain and strong winds uprooted more than 520 trees and electric poles in various parts of the state, disrupting power supply to almost 1,000 villages, state officials said.
Cyclone Biparjoy made a landfall near Jakhau Port in Gujarat after churning across the Arabian Sea for more than 10 days. The wind speed ranged between 125 kilometres per hour (kmph) and 140 kmph but started losing force gradually.
Rajasthan, which lies north of Gujarat, was likely to witness extremely heavy rainfall on Friday and Saturday (17), the IMD said.
Earlier on Friday, prime minister Narendra Modi had a telephonic talk with Bhupendra Patel, the chief minister of Gujarat, to take stock of the situation following the landfall. The former, who had also spoken with the chief minister before the arrival of the cyclone and chaired a high-level meeting over the preparedness, had also asked about the details of the safety arrangements put in place for the state’s wild animals, including lions, in the Gir forest.
The Gujarat government moved to safety nearly 100,000 people from the coastal and low-lying areas. Train services were also affected by the cyclone with around 100 trains either cancelled or short-terminated, sources in the Western Railway said.
Several teams of the national and state disaster response forces besides personnel from Gujarat’s road and building department and state electricity department were on the ground in the coastal areas.
