Bhubaneswar, May 25: Over two lakh people from ten coastal districts of Odisha were evacuated to safer places till 4 PM as the very severe cyclonic storm ‘YAAS’ moved further into north Odisha coast to make landfall in between Dhamra and Balasore in the early hours of Wednesday
State Relief Commissioner(SRC) Pradip Kumar Jena said the evacuation process will continue till 2100 hours tonight and the state government has targeted to shift about 7.5 lakh people to safer places.
He said as per the latest IMD forecast the very severe cyclonic storm YAAS will have landfall at about 0430 hours to 0500 hours of Wednesday morning between Dhamra and Balasore, more likely in between Basudebpur and Bahanaga of Bhadrak district.
Mr, Jena said after landfall the cyclone would move further towards Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar and expected to cross Odisha by Wednesday evening.
SRC sources said out of over two lakh people a majority of 74,132 have already been evacuated from Balasore district,73,103 from Bhadrak district and 41,685 from Kendrapara district.
The state government has deployed 52 NDRF teams, 60 ODRAF teams,206 Fire services teams, 86 OFDC teams and over 400 other Response teams in the relief and rescue operation in 12 districts in the state.
Mr Jena said the government is focusing on 77 blocks described as high intensity where the impact of cyclone Yaas will be severe and accordingly made arrangements of evacuating the people from this zone by tonight.
The Cyclone, which is now centred about 280 km south-southeast of Paradip, is expected to cross the Odisha coast at Soro-Bahanaga in Balasore district on Wednesday morning, according to the Centre of Environment and Climate (CEC) of Siksha ‘O’Anusandhan (SOA) here.
The system is likely to move in a north- northwesterly direction and while crossing the coast the wind speed could be around 100 km per hour gusting to 120 km per hour, Director of CEC Dr Sarat Chandra Sahu said.
He said the landfall could occur any time between midnight and 4 am on Wednesday morning.
Dr Sahu said light to moderate rain would be experienced in Bhubaneswar with wind speed reaching 40 km per hour gusting to 50 km per hour by this evening.
The wind speed might vary between 70 km and 100 km per hour in the coastal belt stretching from Jagatsinghpur to Balasore district from this afternoon.
Heavy to very heavy rainfall could occur at many places with extremely heavy fall likely at few places in the districts of Kendrapara, Bhadrak, Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Jajpur, Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Deogarh, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Dhenkanal and Angul from tonight, he said.
The districts of Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Sundargarh, Jajpur and Dhenkanal could experience more than 250 mm of precipitation, Dr Sahu said
However, the SRC said wind velocity in the coastal parts of Odisha would increase after 9 PM tonight and at the time of landfall it would increase to 140 to 150 kmph with gusting 165 kmph.
