WebProNews

Tag: cyclone phailin

  • Tropical Cyclone Phailin Prompts Mass Evacuation

    Tropical Cyclone Phailin is gathering in the Bay of Bengal and will soon make landfall on India’s east coast. Preparations are underway to insure that the destruction from Phailin doesn’t compare to the disastrous Cyclone 05B, also known as the Odisha Cyclone, which made landfall in the same area, causing the loss of more than 10,000 lives on October 29, 1999.

    According to CNN, authorities have laid down a mandatory evacuation of at least 440,000 people from low lying areas in Odisha. They left on foot or by bicycle, the country’s National Disaster Management Authority vice-chairman, Marri Shashidhar Reddy, told reporters at a televised news conference early Saturday afternoon. Evacuations will continue until Phailin roars ashore, he said.

    “We have taken a zero-casualty approach,” said Odisha state disaster manager Kamal Lochan Mishra. “If people do not move, force will be used to evacuate them.”

    The evacuees will be housed in about 250 emergency shelters in buildings like schools and government offices until the cyclone subsides, which likely won’t happen in the next two days.

    International humanitarian organization World Vision said it was helping local community groups prepare for the cyclone’s arrival.

    “In a storm of this magnitude there is the potential for widespread damage to crops and livestock in the low-lying coastal areas and houses completely wiped away,” said Kunal Shah, the head of World Vision’s emergency response in India. “So while we are praying this storm loses intensity, we’re also preparing.”

    World Vision has trained the local people in disaster preparedness, including search and rescue, basic first aid and how to protect livestock, and has thousands of emergency response kits ready to hand out where needed.

    “We believe communities are better prepared than they were when the devastating cyclone hit in 1999,” said Shah.

    Locals were advised to stay indoors during the storms, as they could be injured by flying debris, as well as the possible flooding of escape routes.

    Phailin is expected to make landfall somewhere near the border of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh states in India before 9 p.m. local time (about noon ET).

    Image via wikipedia

  • Cyclone Phailin Menances India as Hundreds of Thousands Flee

    The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) is forecasting that Cyclone Phailin with sustained wind speeds of up to 185 km per hour (115 mph) gushing to 200 km per hour would hit peninsular India on Saturday evening from 6.00 pm onwards.

    The category 5 cyclone, termed as Very Severe Cyclone Storm, will impact the coastal states of Odisha, Bengal and Andhra Pradesh where hundreds of thousands of villagers and cattle have started fleeing their homes. Millions of people are expected to face electricity black-outs as regional governments have called on AK Anthony, India’s powerful defense minister, to mobilize Indian military for disaster management.

    Cyclone Phailin has filled almost the entire territory of Bay of Bengal, as tidal waves of over 7 feet are approaching and Indian authorities fear “extreme damage” and flooding of coastal districts of eastern peninsular India. People are desperately stocking up food, fuel, fresh water, and medical supplies while schools and colleges have been ordered closed.

    The menacing storm will interrupt one of the holiest festivals in Hinduism, the Durga Ashtami, as India’s dilapidated transportation networks scramble to evacuate as many lives as possible.

    According to US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center, wind gusts of up to 315 km per hour might build-up, considerably stronger than Indian meteorological forecasts. British storm tracking service Tropical Storm Risk has termed Phailin as a “super cyclone.”

    Other forecasters are comparing Phailin to Katrina which devastated Louisiana in 2005.

    The special relief commissioner of the coastal state of Odisha, Pradeep Kumar Mohapatra, claims that 0.5 million people are expected to move to temporary shelters, stocked with food, medicines, fuel, and mobile clinics.

    Bay of Bengal has been the stage for some of the deadliest storms in overpopulated Indian Subcontinent’s history. The 1999 Orissa cyclone took the lives of 10,000 people, with millions more stranded. The 1970 Bhola cyclone, which devastated Bangladesh (then part of Pakistan), remains the deadliest ever, with up to 500,000 deaths and millions of casualties, due to massive flooding of Gangetic river delta.

    [image from youtube]