Thousands evacuated as Cyclone Nisarga lands near Mumbai

A cyclone made landfall south of India’s financial capital of Mumbai, with storm surge threatening to flood beaches and low-lying slums as city authorities struggle to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.

Live TV coverage showed inky black clouds framing the sea on India’s western coastline. Trees swayed wildly, as the rain pounded the coastal towns and villages of the central state of Maharashtra.

In the state capital Mumbai, the home of Bollywood, India’s largest stock exchange and more than 18 million residents, high winds whipped skyscrapers and ripped apart shanty houses near the beach.

Mumbai has not been hit by a cyclone in more than a century, raising concern about its readiness.

Inthehoursbeforethestorm hit India’s shores, drivers and peddlers deserted Mumbai’s Marine Drive, fishermen yanked their nets out of the wavy Arabian Sea and police shooed people away from beaches.

As the cyclone wended its way up India’s western coast, homes in city slums were boarded up and abandoned, and municipal officials patrolled the streets, using bullhorns to order people to stay inside.

Cyclone Nisarga was forecast to drop heavy rains and sustained winds of 62 to 68 miles per hour through Wednesday afternoon after slamming ashore near the city of Alibag, about 60 miles south of Mumbai, India’s Meteorological Department said.

Some 100,000 people were evacuated from low-lying areas in Maharashtra and neighbouring Gujarat, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

Both states, already among the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, activated disaster response teams, fearing extensive flooding could further impair overwhelmed health systems.

Some 200 Covid-19 patients in Mumbai were moved from a field hospital built beneath a tent to another facility to avoid the risk of strong wind gusts, officials said. N Pradhan, director of India’s National Disaster Response Force, said social distancing norms were being followed in cyclone shelters.

The cyclone also threatened to worsen prospects for an economic turnaround as a nine-week-long coronavirus lockdown began to ease this week.

India has reported more than 200,000 cases and 5,800 deaths due to the virus, and epidemiologists predict that the peak is still weeks away.

Nisarga comes just after Cycloneamphantorethrough the Bay of Bengal on India’s east coast and battered West Bengal, killing more than 100 people in India and Bangladesh. Such storms are less common in the Arabian Sea than on India’s east coast.