Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has intensified evacuation of people from coastal areas after the deep depression over the Bay of Bengal intensified into cyclonic storm ‘Dana’ on Wednesday morning and deployed 288 rescue teams in sensitive areas of 14 districts. . The officers provided this information.
The state government has deployed 19 teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), 51 teams of Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) and 178 teams of fire service. Apart from this, 40 additional teams have also been deployed in the affected districts.
The Indian Air Force airlifted 150 NDRF personnel and relief material to Bhubaneswar in two aircraft on Wednesday morning. Angul, Puri, Nayagarh, Khordha, Cuttack, Jagatnisahpur, Kendrapara, Jajpur, Bhadrak, Balasore, Keonjhar, Dhenkanal, Ganjam and Mayurbhanj districts have been put on ‘alert’.
“The state has identified more than 3,000 vulnerable places (villages) in 14 districts and these are mainly in the coastal region,” a senior official of the Special Relief Commissioner’s office said. The evacuation process has been started from there. About 10,60,336 people are likely to be evacuated before the arrival of Cyclone Dana on Friday morning. He said that arrangements have been made to protect life and property.
According to the latest bulletin of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the deep depression formed over the east-central Bay of Bengal moved towards west-northwest at a speed of 18 kilometers per hour and transformed into a cyclonic storm ‘Dana’.
It was about 560 km south-east of Paradip (Odisha) and 630 km south-southeast of Sagar Island (West Bengal) at 5:30 am. “It is very likely to move north-westwards and intensify into a severe cyclonic storm over north-west Bay of Bengal by the morning of October 24,” the IMD said.
From the night of October 24 to the morning of October 25, it will cross the coasts of North Odisha and West Bengal between Puri and Sagar Island, during which the wind speed can reach 120 kilometers per hour. IMD has warned that the cyclone. ‘Dana’ will cause heavy rain in Odisha. Heavy rain (7-11 cm) is likely in some areas of Balasore, Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Jagatnisahpur, Puri and Khordha from the evening of October 23.
It said that heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely at many places on October 24 and 25, and extremely heavy rainfall (more than 21 cm) may occur at isolated places in Balasore, Mayurbhanj and Jajpur districts.
Odisha Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Suresh Pujari said, “All the fishermen returned to the coast by Tuesday evening.” Pujari appealed to the people to cooperate with the administration and move to shelter camps by Wednesday evening.
“We have made all the arrangements like food, drinking water, baby food and women police in the camps,” he said, adding that 10 lakh people will be brought to the camps before the cyclone crosses the coast.