Bhubaneswar/New Delhi: Lakhs of tense people hunkered down in safe places and waited anxiously for supercyclone Fani, packing 205-kmph winds and carrying copious amounts of rain, to hit the Odisha coast on Friday morning.
Pregnant women, especially, have been out of harm’s way, with Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik calling for a ‘zero toll’ operation.
Weather scientists said that it was rare for a superstorm of this intensity to hit the coast at this time of the year. The impact of the supsercyclone will last nearly 12 hours after landfall, as it moves along the north coastal districts to West Bengal.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a review meeting in New Delhi to oversee preparation to minimise damage from the storm, and the relief effort afterwards.
Mr Patnaik in Bhubaneswar and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who ignored Election Commission orders, held meetings to monitor the on-ground situation.
The storm will have 250 km per hour winds when it hits the coast, Bhuban-eswar, Berhampur and Cuttack could get winds measuring up to 115 kmph till noon. Before landfall, as it moves along the districts of AP and Odisha, districts adjacent to its path could experience up to 150 kmph winds.
According to the INCOIS forecast system, the sea along Odisha coast from Gopalpur to Chandbali will remain very rough as high tidal waves ranging from 16 to 34 feet are forecast till the midnight of Friday.
High level of sea water ingress into human habitations is feared along the coast of Gopalpur to Chandbali as tidal storm surge is predicted at 1.5 metre over the astronomical tide, which means the storm surge prior, during and after the land fall along the Odisha coast will be around 6.5 feet.
The Odisha government had set a target of evacuate over 11 lakh people from the coastal districts. Till Thursday evening, nearly 4.5 lakh have been evacuated, informed SRC officials. However, as of now, maximum population evacuated is from Gajapati.
The brunt of Supercyclone Fani’ will be borne by districts like Ganjam, Khurda, Puri, Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara, which are densely populated. But reports said vulnerable areas had not entirely evacuated.
