Cyclone Fani hits Odisha: a million evacuated

At least two people were killed, , a million evacuated, several villages submerged and trees uprooted in Puri after Cyclone Fani hits Odisha today.

The Met Department had warned of very heavy rainfall and “phenomenal sea conditions”. The wind speed is expected to be between 170 and 180 km an hour, which can even reach up to 200 km at the time of landfall.

LIVE UPDATE

• The weather department said that Cyclone Fani is 380km away from Kolkata and 350km away from West Bengal. The eye of the cyclone has already crossed Puri but a certain part of the cyclone is still trigging the storm.
• As the severe cyclonic storm Fani made landfall in neighbouring Odisha, heavy rainfall lashed Kolkata and Gangetic West Bengal on Friday.
• The extremely severe cyclonic storm made landfall alittle after 10 a.m. It was located over 400 km southwest of Kolkata and over 350 km, southwest of the East Midnapore district sea resort Digha.

• The state evacuated more than a million people from the most vulnerable communities along the low-lying coast during the past 24 hours, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said on Twitter.

More than 1 million people have been evacuated from the vulnerable districts in last 24hrs. Ganjam & Puri evacuated more than 3 lakh & 1.3 lakh people respectively to safe shelters. About 5000 kitchens started operating to serve people in the shelters. #OdishaPrepared4Fani

— CMO Odisha (@CMO_Odisha) May 3, 2019

• The Director General of Civil Aviation has issued a revised advisory to all airlines to discontinue flight operations from Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport between Friday 3 p.m. and Saturday 8 a.m.
• “The outer ring cloud band has already reached the coastal areas of West Bengal and Kolkata, prompting rainfall. The rain intensity will be gradually increasing.As the cyclone comes closer to Bengal it will have a speed of 80-100 kmph,” weatherman J. K. Mukhopadhyay said.
• The National Disaster Management Authority, Govt of India, has issued a number of guidelines for the safety of the people stuck in the Cyclone Fani affected areas.