Destruction in Odisha, WB as Amphan strikes
Many dead as heavy rain, devastating winds flatten houses, trees, power poles
NEW DELHI: Cyclone Amphan roared into West Bengal around 20km east of Sagar Island in the Sunderbans on Wednesday, packing winds gusting to a top speed of 185 kmph, triggering torrential rain and leaving a trail of devastation across a wide swath of the state, from deltaic regions to the urban neighbourhoods of Kolkata.
Amphan, the most severe storm in the Bay of Bengal since the Odisha super cyclone of 1999, made landfall between 3.30pm and 5.30pm, flattening houses, uprooting trees and electric pylons, causing rivers to swell and breach their embankments, and killing several in two states according to initial reports.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who was assessing the situation from the state secretariat, said least 10-12 people have died. “Area after area has been ruined. I have experienced a war-like situation today,” she said.
In neighbouring Odisha, at least two deaths were reported by Wednesday night. A two-monthold baby was killed in a wall collapse in the morning after heavy overnight rains in Bhadrak district. In another incident, a woman died in Balasore after an electric pole, uprooted by the storm, fell on her.
“It’s an intense and devastating storm. It is a multi-hazard scenario with heavy rain, strong winds and tidal surge all at the same time. It must have inundated large areas,” said M Mohapatra, director general of the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
At least 658,000 people were evacuated in West Bengal and Odisha before the cyclone struck.
The destruction may be massive, which cannot be assessed at the moment, as the storm will remain in West Bengal as a cyclone until Thursday morning.
It crossed the state and Bangladesh coasts by 7pm on Wednesday and moved north-northeastwards, IMD said in a bulletin.
“The losses will be at three levels — loss to life and property because the storm was tremendous; loss to basic infrastructure, which will take months to leap back to normalcy, and thirdly, loss to livelihoods due to saline water intrusion and large-scale inundation. I have received reports of embankment breaks from Sagar Island, Ramganga, Hingalganj and a few other places. Many embankments are seeing overtopping of water because the rivers have swelled up, these will break in days,” said Tuhin Ghosh, director of the School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University.
CM Banerjee said a task force constituted to assess the damage will meet on Thursday. She advised people in shelter homes not to step out for the next 12 days, saying there has been a “huge devastation”.
Described by weather scientists as a very severe cyclonic storm bordering on an extremely severe cyclonic storm, Amphan packed winds with a speed of 155 to 165 kmph, gusting to 185 kmph. A storm is described as an extremely severe cyclone when wind speeds reach between 167 and 221 kmph. A super cyclone of the 1999 Odisha kind, which killed 9,000 people, packs a wind velocity of more than 222 kmph.
“If you consider Amphan’s intensity during its lifetime, then it is the most intense since the 1999 super cyclone. But the 1999 cyclone made landfall as a super cyclone; this one weakened marginally during landfall,” said Mohapatra. IMD had forecast a storm surge of 4 to 5 metres above the astronomical tide that was expected to inundate low- lying areas of South and North 24 Parganas.