• Monday, February 24, 2025

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‘Yaas’ intensifies into cyclonic storm; nearly half a million people evacuated

A damaged electricity transformer lies on the ground in Mahuva on May 19, 2021, after Cyclone Tauktae hit the west coast of India with powerful winds and driving rain, leaving at least 55 people dead and almost 100 missing. (Photo by SAM PANTHAKY/AFP via Getty Images)

By: Pramod Kumar

INDIAN authorities on Monday (24) ordered the evacuation of nearly half a million people out of the path of a new cyclone heading towards eastern India just one week after another deadly storm smashed into the west coast.

A deep depression over the Bay of Bengal has intensified into cyclonic storm ‘Yaas’ and is likely to cross the Odisha-West Bengal coasts on Wednesday (26) after turning into a very severe cyclonic storm, the MeT department said. 

‘Yaas’ is likely to cross the Odisha-West Bengal coasts between Paradip and Sagar Islands around noon on Wednesday as a very severe cyclonic storm with wind speeds of 155-165 kmph, Kolkata’s Regional Meteorological Centre deputy director Sanjib Bandopadhyay told PTI

Neighbouring Bangladesh has also been put on alert.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) director general Dr Mrutunjay Mohapatra, better known as the ‘Cyclone Man of India’, said, “Four coastal districts of Odisha — Balasore, Bhadrak, Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur — are likely to be most impacted by the cyclonic storm.”  
Mohapatra said that apart from wind blowing at 120-165 kmph velocity, Odisha will also experience heavy rain.  

The cyclones are hitting as India reels from a surge in coronavirus infections that has plunged the healthcare system into crisis and pushed the country’s Covid-19 death toll above 300,000.

Experts say storms off India’s coast are increasing in frequency and intensity as climate change warms ocean waters.

Yaas could pack gusts of up to 185 kilometres (115 miles) per hour as a “Very Severe Cyclonic Storm” at the time of landfall, the department added.

Storm surges of up to four metres (13 feet) high were “likely to inundate low-lying coastal areas”, it added.

Evacuations in coastal districts and the Sunderbans mangrove forest, a UNESCO world heritage site, started on Sunday (23), West Bengal disaster management minister Javed Ahmed Khan said.

“We have to evacuate nearly half a million people… to schools (and) government offices, which have been turned into cyclone centres to provide shelter to these people,” Khan told AFP.

The military and disaster teams have been deployed to help with the preparations and potential rescue operations, prime minister Narendra Modi said Sunday.

Last Monday (17), Cyclone Tauktae — India’s first major tropical storm this season — slammed into the western state of Gujarat.

It battered several states with torrential downpours and strong winds.

The death toll from Tauktae rose to at least 155 on Monday after more bodies were recovered from an oil rig off the western city of Mumbai and several support vessels, the navy said.

In Sri Lanka, the weather bureau warned the island nation’s fishermen not to venture into the Bay of Bengal.

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