Miami Herald

6 dead as severe cyclone heads toward southern India this week

- Associated Press

NEW DELHI

A severe cyclone is roaring in the Arabian Sea off southweste­rn India with winds of up to 87 mph, already causing heavy rains and flooding that have killed at least six people, officials said Sunday.

Cyclone Tauktae, the season’s first major storm, is expected to make landfall early Tuesday in Gujarat state, a statement by the India Meteorolog­ical Department said.

The massive storm will likely hamper India’s fight against a coronaviru­s surge that’s sweeping the country with devastatin­g death tolls, as virus lockdown measures may slow relief work and damage from the storm could potentiall­y destroy roads and cut vital supply lines.

In areas along the Arabian Sea coast, four people were killed and 73 villages badly damaged on Sunday, according to the southweste­rn Karnataka state’s disaster management authority.

A woman was killed when a coconut tree fell on her and a man riding a scooter was hit by an uprooted electric pole in the western state of Goa lashed by stormy winds and heavy rains, said Pramod

Sawant, the state’s top elected official.

Nearly 2,500 government rescuer workers have been deployed in six states on Cyclone Tauktae’s path — Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtr­a and Goa — equipped with wireless radios, satellite phones, cutters and tools needed for post-cyclone operations.

The storm, moving at a speed of 7 mph, was currently 410 miles southsouth­east of Veraval in Gujarat state, the India Meteorolog­ical Department said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday reviewed with officials the preparedne­ss of states to deal with the cyclone, a government statement said.

The region is no stranger to devastatin­g cyclones, but changing climate patterns have caused them to become more intense, rather than more frequent.

Last cyclone season, K.J. Ramesh, the former chief of India’s weather agency, said the increased ferocity of the storms is caused by the temperatur­e of the sea’s surface. Warm ocean water is where storms get their energy, and the amount of heat trapped in the top 2,300 feet of the seas has increased.

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