Cyclone Phailin hits Odisha: power out, air, rail travel hit

Cyclone Phailin, which made landfall with a wind speed of 200 kmph near Gopalpur town in Odisha this night, is likely to maintain the intensity of a very severe cyclonic storm for six hours, the India Meteorological Department said.

The storm over east central Bay of Bengal has moved westwards, slightly intensified, and lay centred about 590 km south-southeast of Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district and 600 km southeast of Gopalpur in Ganjam district, S C Sahu, director of theBhubaneswar meteorological centre, said.

Gopalpur in Ganjam district was experiencing heavy rains and the cyclone is likely to move northwestwards across interior Odisha after about six hours bringing heavy to very heavy rain at some places in the state, the IMD said.

Squalls with wind speeds reaching 100-120 kmph would occur for another six hours which would lessen to 60-70 kmph in the subsequent six hours, it said.

Eighteen fishermen, who had ventured out in the sea despite being warned of Cyclone Phailin, were still stranded on their trawler off the coast of Paradip in Odisha for the second day on Saturday.

Army, Navy Air Force and National Disaster Relief Force personnel are on the ready to move out in the state for rescue operations. Arrangement of food, drinking water, medical facilities, relief and rescue operations at railway stations has been made by East Coast Railway, under whose jurisdiction the area that Cyclone Phailin is expected to hit falls.

Sintex water tanks of 2,000 litre capacity have been made available and six  BTPN wagons with water have been positioned at Palasa.

The cyclone has caused a lot of inconvenience to air and rail travellers as many flights were cancelled while few others were diverted, and the scene for railways was similar. However, airlines are not going to charge passengers affected by the cancelled flights.

At least 10 flights of Air India, Indigo and Jet Airways scheduled to arrive or take off from the airport here remained cancelled, director of Biju Patnaik International Airport Sarad Kumar said.

There has been no electricity supply in Gopalpur, Odisha, and Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh since last night.

All trains between Howrah and Visakhapatnam have been suspended and power supply switched off along the Odisha coastline, and three coastal districts in Andhra Pradesh as a precautionary measure.

Around 445,000 people have already been evacuated from the coastal areas of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said.

Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik said on Saturday all necessary steps have been taken to evacuate people from low-lying areas, and that added that relief, medical supplies and food would be supplied to people affected by Cyclone Phailin.

One of the biggest cyclones in 14 years, cyclone Phailin is expected to cause maximum damage to the Ganjam district of Odisha. About 40 per cent of the relief and rescue teams will be stationed at Ganjam.

Extremely heavy rains would occur in Ganjam, Puri, Gajapati, Khurda, Jagatsinghpur, Nayagarh, Cuttack, Bhadrak and Kendrapara districts on the coast during the next 48 hours, the IMD said.

The sea off the coast would be lashed by waves 3.0 to 3.5 metres high which could inundate low-lying areas of Ganjam, Khurda, Puri and Jagatsinghpur districts, it said.

The "Great Danger Signal Number Ten" was hoisted at Gopalpur and Puri and Great Danger Signal Number Nine at Paradip and Chandbali.

This is the strongest cyclone since the one in 1999 that wreaked havoc in Odisha, leaving at least 9,000 people dead.

''Our main focus is to avoid loss of human life. So far we have evacuated 4.50 lakh people in Odisha and 1 lakh more in Andhra Pradesh,'' union home secretary Anil Goswami earlier told reporters in Delhi.

Most of the evacuated people have been sheltered in 500 specially-built cyclone camps in the two states. Each cyclone shelter can accommodate up to 1,500 people while their ground floors can be used as cattle shelters.

Met officials said the impact of cyclone Phailin would be highest during the night and gradually come down from dawn.

Reports said that two more people were killed in Odisha when trees fell on them following strong winds.

The National Disaster Management Authority said it had deployed nearly 2,000 National Disaster Response Force personnel in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal.

Five lakh tonnes of foodgrains has been kept ready for distribution to the people in the affected region. ''We are ready with 5 lakh tonnes of foodgrains for distribution to cyclone-affected people in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha,'' union food minister K V Thomas said.

Rains also lashed parts of West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, East Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.