Mumbai set to be hit by first cyclone in a century

A CYCLONE in the Arabian Sea was barreling toward India’s business capital Mumbai yesterday — the first in a century — threatening high winds and flooding for an area already struggling with the nation’s highest number of coronavirus infections and deaths.

Cyclone Nisarga was forecast to make landfall today on the country’s west coast near Mumbai, a coastal city home to 18.4 million people and known for the Bollywood film industry. Mumbai hasn’t been hit by a cyclone in more than a century, raising concern about its readiness.

National Disaster Response Force personnel have been sent to both Maharashtra state, home to Mumbai, and nearby Gujarat state and officials were urging people in at risk areas to evacuate.

Maharashtra’s top official, Uddhav Thackeray, said on Twitter that residents in Mumbai’s expansive slums had been ordered to evacuate, though it was not immediately clear if shelters had been set up. He also said some 150 coronavirus patients had been moved out of a hospital near the city’s beachfront.

A city unprepapred?

India’s meteorological department said the storm could intensify into a severe cyclone, which is defined as a cyclone with wind speeds of 119 to 165 kilometers per hour and is the fourth most powerful category on the local scale.

Nisarga comes just two weeks after Cyclone Amphan tore through the Bay of Bengal on India’s east coast and battered West Bengal state, killing more than 100 people in India and neighboring Bangladesh.

Although post-monsoon flooding is common in Mumbai in the autumn, some experts fear the city isn’t prepared for the high winds and storm surges that come with a cyclone.

“There’s been no test of how the city does in a cyclone,” said Adam Sobel, a climate scientist at Columbia University who has studied the risk to Mumbai. “It just makes me nervous.”

The storm comes as the area grapples with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Maharashtra and Gujarat states have reported about 44 percent of India’s 198,000 COVID-19 cases nationwide, and 61 percent of all virus deaths.

News reports have shown an overwhelmed hospital system, with patients on hospital floors until beds become available and bodies left in wards. Doctors associations say a growing number of medical workers are catching the virus.

(AP)