In line with the forecast issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Cyclone Yaas hit the Odisha coast about 15 kilometres south-southwest of Balasore today morning. Strong winds gusting upto 140 kmph (kilometres per hour) were recorded, damaging boats, houses and causing substantial damage to property. So far, two deaths have been reported from Odisha.
The ‘very severe cyclonic storm’ is likely to move north-northwestwards and gradually weaken into a ‘severe cyclonic storm’ soon and into a cyclonic storm during the subsequent six hours.
“It will reach Jharkhand tomorrow morning. It caused heavy to extremely heavy rain in Odisha in past 24 hrs. North Odisha & coastal Odisha expected to receive heavy to extremely heavy rain today,” IMD director general (DG) Mrutyunjay Mohapatra was quoted as saying.
The IMD DG added that West Bengal is expected to receive isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall today. Jharkhand will receive heavy to very heavy rainfall today and tomorrow with extremely heavy rainfall in isolated places.
Coastal Odisha bears the brunt
Initial reports of damage from Odisha indicate that in its coastal areas the casualties are likely to increase.
“People in the coastal areas haven’t yet come out of the cyclone shelters to assess the damage but it is likely to be higher than that incurred during Cyclone Amphan last May,” Durga Dey, a Puri-based activist working for Spandan NGO, told Gaon Connection. “Coastal people were already trying to recover from the losses of the last year’s Amphan cyclone and Fans cyclone of 2019, and their situation will surely worsen,” she added.
“The communication with our volunteers in the coastal areas is suspended due to inclement weather. A proper assessment of the damage will only be possible by evening,” Dey added.
More than 1.1 million people were evacuated from the coastal areas in West Bengal and Odisha yesterday as cyclone Yaas hovered over the eastern coast.
Embankments breach in the Sundarbans
In West Bengal’s Sundarbans, the embankments to keep the low lying areas safe from high tides have been damaged causing the flooding of the islands in the delta. “Due to the breaking of embankments, high tide water has entered the houses and people have lost livestock to the heavy flow of water. Cultivation has been inundated as well,” Ganesh Chanda Das, a volunteer who works for a local NGO in Sagar Island of the Sundarbans, told Gaon Connection.
Sundarbans Delta is at a perennial risk of erosion which, claim experts, is both a natural process and also impacted by climate change and sea-level rise.
For instance, a study has recorded that between 1969 and 2009, the Indian Sundarbans Delta has lost 210.247 sq km land.
“After the landfall the system is very likely to move northwestwards across interior districts of Odisha and weaken gradually. It is likely to maintain the intensity of Cyclonic Storm till the early morning of 27th May and thereafter it will weaken gradually into a Depression over Jharkhand,” the IMD statement read.
Also Read: The story of how women are facing the impact of climate change in the Sundarbans. Alone.
Meanwhile, Jharkhand is also on a high alert and is presently evacuating low-lying areas amid the forecast that remnants o f the cyclone would be hitting the state by midnight after battering neighbouring Odisha and West Bengal, officials were quoted as saying.
Disaster Management Secretary Amitabh Kaushal told news agency PTI, “Operations are being executed on war-footing in the vulnerable areas in East and West Singhbhum, besides some other districts, in view of the very severe cyclonic storm Yaas.”
