Tag Archives: Cyclone Fani

Cyclone slams into Indian temple town, Bangladesh braces with evacuation order

Stranded passengers rest inside a railway station after trains between Kolkata and Odisha were cancelled ahead of Cyclone Fani, in Kolkata, India, May 3, 2019. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri

By Jatindra Dash and Serajul Quadir

BHUBANESWAR, India/ DHAKA (Reuters) – A cyclone barreled into eastern India on Friday, damaging houses in the tourist town of Puri and wounding 160 people after a million people were moved into storm shelters.

Trees were uprooted, power and telecom lines snapped as Tropical Cyclone Fani, the strongest storm to hit India in five years, swept ashore the eastern state of Odisha.

Bangladesh, which lies further up the path of Tropical Cyclone Fani, ordered the evacuation of 2.1 million people before the storm arrives on Saturday.

Indian government spokesman Sitanshu Kar said there were no reports of deaths but 160 people were believed injured.

Trees are blown by strong winds ahead of cyclone Fani's landfall in Puri, India, May 3, 2019 in this picture obtained from social media. Mandatory credit Likan Patra/via REUTERS

Trees are blown by strong winds ahead of cyclone Fani’s landfall in Puri, India, May 3, 2019 in this picture obtained from social media. Mandatory credit Likan Patra/via REUTERS

Bangladesh’s junior disaster minister Enamur Rahman said 56 thousand volunteers were racing to move millions out of the storm’s path.

Fani spent days building up power in the northern reaches of the Bay of Bengal before it struck the coast of Odisha at around 8 a.m., the state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

Howling winds gusting up to 200 kph (124 mph) whipsawed trees, uprooting scores, and driving rain impacted visibility, while streets were deserted in the state capital Bhubaneswar and Puri.

“Damage in Puri is extensive, power supply, telephone lines disrupted,” Odisha’s Special Relief Commissioner Bishnupada Sethi told Reuters, referring to the seaside Hindu temple town that is popular with pilgrims and was directly in the storm’s path.

Cyclone tracker Tropical Storm Risk put Fani as a powerful category four storm on a scale of one to five. The IMD said the storm was now weakening.

Close to 60 km (37 miles) inland, winds brought down electricity poles in Bhubaneswar, where authorities had ordered the airport to stay closed. Schools and colleges in Odisha were also shut. A major hospital in the city suffered extensive structural damage but all patients and staff were safe, authorities said.

Trees are blown by strong winds at a neighbourhood in Puri, India, May 3, 2019 in this picture obtained from social media. Mandatory credit Lushna Patra/via REUTERS

Trees are blown by strong winds at a neighborhood in Puri, India, May 3, 2019, in this picture obtained from social media. Mandatory credit Lushna Patra/via REUTERS

“PANIC SITUATION”

“It was a massive cyclone, like many others our house is flooded. Boundary walls of houses around us have collapsed, trees have been uprooted. It is a panic situation,” Anuradha Mohanty, a Bhubaneswar resident, told Reuters.

People packed into shelters, spreading mats to wait out the storm, television and social media showed.

More than 600 pregnant women were shifted into safe locations, with nearly 500 ambulances on standby. Some 242 medical institutions had been provided with power back-up, government authorities said.

Heavy rains lashed the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka and a few coastal districts of the country. Seaports have been ordered shut, a government official said.

The storm is not expected to touch the country’s southeastern district of Cox’s Bazar where nearly a million Rohingya Muslims are sheltered.

Plants of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, the country’s top refiner, and power producer NTPC Ltd are operating normally in Odisha.

India’s cyclone season can last from April to December when severe storms batter coastal cities and cause widespread deaths and damage to crops and property in both India and neighboring Bangladesh.

But recent technological advances have helped meteorologists predict weather patterns more accurately and prepare.

A super-cyclone battered the coast of Odisha for 30 hours in 1999, killing 10,000 people. In 2013, a mass evacuation of nearly a million people likely saved thousands of lives.

Cyclones typically quickly lose power as they move inland.

(Writing by Mayank Bhardwaj and Devjyot Ghoshal; additional reporting by Serajul Quadir in DHAKA; Promit Mukherjee in MUMBAI; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Nick Macfie and Alison Williams)

Towns evacuate, tourists flee as cyclone menaces India’s east coast

A fisherman carries his tools as he leaves for a safer place after tying his boats along the shore ahead of cyclone Fani in Peda Jalaripeta on the outskirts of Visakhapatnam, India, May 1, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

By Jatindra Dash and Mayank Bhardwaj

BHUBANESHWAR, India/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India has evacuated more than 300,000 people along its northeast coastline by boat, bus and train ahead of a severe cyclone due to make landfall on Friday, with many villagers piling household possessions on to trucks before fleeing their homes.

Severe cyclonic storm Fani was churning up the Bay of Bengal about 320 km (198 miles) south-southwest of the Hindu temple town of Puri where special trains were put on to evacuate tourists and the beaches were empty.

In total, about 1.2 million people are expected to be evacuated from low-lying areas of 15 districts in the eastern state of Odisha to cyclone shelters, schools and other buildings, authorities said.

“We are maximizing efforts at all levels for evacuation,” Odisha’s Special Relief Commissioner Bishnupada Sethi told Reuters.

Fani was generating maximum sustained winds of 170-180 km (105-111 miles) per hour, the state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. Cyclone tracker Tropical Storm Risk rated Fani a mid-range category 3 storm.

The cyclone will make landfall by Friday afternoon, the IMD said.

The navy has deployed seven warships and has six planes and seven helicopters on standby along with divers, rubber boats, medical teams and relief materials.

Authorities have also shut down operations at two major ports – Paradip and Visakhapatnam – and ships have been ordered to move out to avoid damage.

In Paradip, television footage showed residents piling bicycles, sewing machines and gas cylinders on to small trucks and leaving for any of nearly 900 shelters supplied with food, water and medicines.

Odisha state government has deployed hundreds of disaster management personnel, closed schools and colleges and asked doctors and other health officials not to go on leave until May 15.

India’s cyclone season can last from April to December when severe storms batter coastal cities and cause widespread deaths and damage to crops and property in both India and neighboring Bangladesh.

Technological advancements have helped meteorologists to predict weather patterns well in advance, giving authorities more time to prepare.

In 1999, a super-cyclone battered the coast of Odisha for 30 hours, killing 10,000 people. A mass evacuation of nearly a million people saved thousands of lives in 2013.

Indian Oil Corp, the country’s top refiner, said its 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) Paradip refinery in Odisha state did not need to shut down for now.

An executive at Reliance Industries Ltd, which operates an oil and gas block off the east coast, said its operations had not been affected. India’s National Aluminium Co Ltd said there was no need to halt operations.

In a Tweet, Indian airline Vistara, a joint venture of India’s Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines Ltd, said it would waive cancellation charges for flights to Odisha’s capital, Bhubaneswar, and Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, until Sunday.

IndiGo Airlines, the country’s largest domestic carrier, said it had canceled flights to Visakhapatnam, in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

(Additional reporting by Subrata Nagchoudhury in KOLKATA; Neha Dasgupta and Nidhi Verma in NEW DELHI; Promit Mukherjee in MUMBAI; writing by Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by Nick Macfie)