Cyclone Yaas makes landfall in Odisha’s Balasore at 9.15 am, Bengal on high alert
High tide has made the situation worse, leading to inundation in many areas.
Cyclone Yaas has made landfall in south of Balasore of Odisha at 9.15 AM on Wednesday. This is approximately 240 km from Kolkata, West Bengal. The entire impact of the landfall will continue for three to four hours. The windspeed is up to 140 km per hour and gusts of 155 km per hour.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) authorities have said that the storm is moving north-northwest at about 17 km per hour and will cross the north Odisha and Bengal coast by noon as a “very severe cyclonic storm”.
In West Bengal, the coastal areas have become more critical due to the high tide situation, which has led to waterlogging in many regions of East Midnapore, South 24 Parganas in the most, as well as some parts of West Midnapore, Jhargram, Purulia, Howrah, Kolkata and North 24 Parganas. The situation is alarming in places such as Digha, Shankarpur, Bakkhali, Frasergunj, Mandarmani and so on. There is knee-deep water in some places.
Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore districts are likely to be most affected.
About 11 lakh people have been evacuated from different parts of West Bengal, said chief minister Mamata Banerjee. She was monitoring the situation from the control room at the state headquarters Nabanna all night.
Another 2.5 lakh people have been shifted from low-lying regions in Odisha. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik held meetings on Tuesday night to review preparations.
Kolkata’s Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport will remain closed till 7.45 pm. The Biju Patnaik International Airport in Bhubaneswar has been closed till 5 am Thursday. The Veer Surendra Sai Airport in Odisha’s Jharsuguda is also closed till 7.45 pm Thursday and the Durgapur and Rourkela airports will also remain closed today. Meanwhile, Indian Railways has announced the cancellation of at least 38 long-distance passenger trains in the region till Saturday.
The Army has deployed 17 relief columns in Bengal. Nine are in Kolkata and the rest are in Purulia, Birbhum, Bardhaman, Howrah, Hooghly, Nadia and North 24 Parganas districts. Three columns and an engineer task force (ETF) have been deployed in Odisha. At least 115 National Disaster Response Force teams have been deployed.
Two persons were electrocuted and at least 200 houses were damaged in West Bengal due to strong winds and heavy rainfall on Tuesday.
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