‘Extremely severe’ Tauktae lashes India’s western coast
At least 12 killed and thousands evacuated from coastal areas; cyclone makes night landfall in Gujarat
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated on Monday, with electricity supply and transport services badly hit as the most powerful Arabian Sea cyclone in over two decades barrelled up the country’s western coast, making landfall in Gujarat after leaving a trail of destruction in Kerala, Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra, and killing at least a dozen people.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) labelled the storm as “extremely severe”, upgrading it from “very severe” earlier. The cyclone battered Mumbai with wind speeds of up to 114 kmph, causing the suspension of operations at the financial hub’s airport and flooding in many parts of the city. Electricity poles and trees were uprooted and buildings damaged in many coastal areas across states.
The cyclone’s landfall began around 8.30pm, IMD said, with the outer cloud band of Tauktae lying over Saurashtra at around 9pm. The landfall process was to take about four hours, scientists said late on Monday.
“On Monday morning, it intensified to an extremely severe cyclonic storm, but it weakened marginally during landfall,” said Sunitha Devi, in charge, cyclones, IMD.
The maximum wind intensity at the eye of the storm at the time of the landfall was 160170kmph, gusting to 190kmph. The system was crossing the Gujarat coast between Porbandar and Mahuva (Bhavnagar district), east of Diu, with a maximum wind speed of 155-165 kmph, gusting to 185kmph.
Cyclones are low-pressure systems that form over warm tropical waters, with gale-force winds near the centre. The winds can extend hundreds of kilometres from the eye of the storm, sucking up water and later producing heavy rainfall.
The latest cyclone to hit India has been given the name “Tauktae” (pronounced Tau’te) by Myanmar; it means “gecko” in the Burmese language.
Heavy rainfall and high-speed winds lashed Mumbai and its adjoining districts as the cyclone moved up the western coast during the day. According to an official, six people were killed in Maharashtra’s Konkan region in separate incidents related to the severe cyclonic storm and three sailors remained missing after two boats sank in the sea.
Rain from the storm earlier killed six people in Kerala, Karnataka and Goa states over the weekend.
As Mumbai and other coastal areas continued to be battered with heavy rain, over 12,000 people were relocated to safer places from the coastal areas in Maharashtra.
Experts said IMD couldn’t accurately forecast the intensity of the weather system. Reacting to the criticism, M Rajeevan, secretary, ministry of earth sciences, said: “In recent years, we are seeing very intense cyclones form over Arabian Sea; they also intensify rapidly which is what we call rapid intensification in scientific terms. It happens because ocean heat content is higher and sea surface temperatures are also higher.”