Odisha to evacuate 8 lakh people before cyclone Fani makes landfall on May 3
Bhubaneswar, May 1 (UNI): The Odisha government today chalked out a plan to evacuate nearly eight lakh people along the coast and put them in the cyclone shelters as the extremely severe cyclonic storm Fani with wind speed reaching 180kmph will make land fall near Puri on May 3 evening.
Special relief commissioner B.P. Sethy said the evacuation process will be completed by tomorrow evening.
The government today deputed 12 senior IAS officer and 11 senior IPS officer to the affected districts to supervise the relief rescue and restoration operation.
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today reviewed the preparedness for the cyclonic storm Fani with the senior officials at the stat secretariat and also with the district collectors through video conferencing.
Naveen stressed about the zero casualty and asked the people not to be panicked stating that the government is fully prepared to tackle the situation.
Sources said already 28 units of NDRF team are ready to be pressed in to relief and rescue operation besides 20 units of the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force.
The state government had requested the centre to provide two air force helicopters to be engaged in the relief and rescue operation and if necessary air dropping of food packets in the affected areas.
Already one lakh dry food packets have kept ready to be distributed in the affected areas.
Since the Cyclone Fani will make landfall in Puri, the authority today asked all the tourists to leave Puri by tomorrow evening and asked the hoteliers not to book room till May 5.
IMD sources said the extremely severe cyclonic storm Fani would hit the land mass near Balukhand close to the Puri coast at 1730 hours on May 3 with maximum wind speed of 175-185 kmph gusting to 205 kmph.
After landfall, it is likely to move to Khordha, Cuttack, Jajpur, Bhadrak and Balasore districts of Odisha and then enter West Bengal.
The Met department has already issued yellow, orange and red warning for nearly 17 districts in the state where heavy to very heavy rain fall would lash accompanied by wind speed of 40 to 50 kmph on May 2 to 60- 70 kmph on May 3 and 90 to 11 kmph with gusting of 115 kmph from May 4.
It further said storm surge of about 1.5 metre height above astronomical tide is very likely to inundate low lying areas of Ganjam,Khurdha, Puri and Jagatsinghpur district at the time of landfall.
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