Mumbai bears the brunt: Airport closed, power outages across city
Cyclone Tauktae, an extremely severe cyclonic storm (ESCS) that passed Mumbai shortly after noon on Monday, was the worst cyclone to have skirted the city in at least four decades, leading to a cancellation of flights, bringing sections of the public transportation network to a halt, and disrupting the work-from-home schedules of residents due to power cuts and poor cellphone connectivity.
The India Meteorological
Department (IMD) confirmed that Tauktae began crossing Mumbai’s latitude at about 12.37pm on Monday, at a distance of about 120-130km from the coast. Independent experts said the cyclone, which intensified into an extremely severe storm early on Monday, was likely the first such category of storm to venture this close to the port city since 1891.
When it achieved peak intensity off the Mumbai coast, the cyclone itself was travelling at a speed of 222kmph, as it travelled north-westward toward Gujarat, unleashing gale winds touching upwards of 100kmph in the city.
Tauktae’s intensity was felt across the city as residents shared videos of fallen trees, broken power cables and choppy waves in the Arabian Sea as wind speeds of 114 km/hour were reported at around 2pm by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s weather station.
Tauktae made landfall around 8.30pm on Monday as an “extremely severe cyclonic storm”, said India Meteorological Department (IMD). Thereafter, it moved north north-westwards and crossed the Gujarat coast between Porbandar and Mahuva (in Bhavnagar district), east of Diu, with a maximum wind speed of up to 185 kmph.
The speed at the centre, or “eye” of the storm, was up to 190 kmph. “We could say that its intensity is bordering on ‘extremely severe cyclonic storm’, and it matches the forecasts we made,” said Sunitha Devi who studies cyclones at IMD. She said IMD predicted Tauktae will be a “very severe cyclone” ever since a low-pressure area formed over the Arabian Sea. “This morning it intensified into an extremely severe cyclonic storm, but it weakened marginally during landfall.”
Gale winds with speeds up to 90 kmph blew along the south Gujarat, Daman and Diu coasts when the cyclone hit land. Diu reported wind speed of 110 kmph. But speeds were likely to go up to 185 km/hr off the Gujarat coast and places like Amreli, Bhavnagar, Junagadh and Gir Somnath districts. In Bharuch, Anand, south Ahmedabad, and Botad, wind speed will be up to 165 km/hr, IMD said in its bulletin. Tidal waves of up to 4 metres height will hit Anand, Amreli, Gir Somnath, Diu and Bhavnagar, while waves as high as 3 metres will inundate parts of Bharuch and Ahmedabad.
Experts noted that this kind of a powerful cyclone hasn’t hit the Gujarat coast in a long time. “Going by IMD’S cyclone e-atlas, for the first time after 1976, and only the second time since 1900, a cyclone that formed in May is going to hit the Gujarat coast with wind speeds greater than 35 knots (65 km/hr),” said Vineet Kumar, a cyclone researcher at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. He also tweeted that Tauktae, with a wind speed of 120 knots (222 km/hr), is the strongest pre-monsoon Arabian Sea cyclone after 2010