Bengal coast bears brunt as Cyclone Remal makes landfall
Severe Cyclone Remal hits West Bengal and Bangladesh with winds of 110-120 kmph, causing destruction.
Severe Cyclone Remal made landfall over coastal areas of West Bengal and Bangladesh on Sunday evening, lashing the region with winds of 110-120 kmph gusting up to 135 kmph, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
The landfall, which began around 8.30pm, was expected to continue for the next four hours, causing widespread destruction and disruption to nearby regions where close to a million people had been evacuated in the last couple of days.
“Forward sector of wall cloud region is entering into land. The landfall process has commenced over coastal areas of Bangladesh and adjoining West Bengal. It will continue for next 4 hours,” an update from IMD said.
Also Read | Cyclone Remal: Bangladesh evacuates 8 lakh people, sends them to concrete shelters
The eye of the storm was located about 30km from the Bangladesh coastline, and experts expected the landfall mostly to occur in the Sundarbans region, where the mangroves were likely to absorb the worst of the storm surges.
On Sunday evening, coastal Bengal experienced gale-force winds reaching 100-110 kmph, with some of these effects felt in adjoining North Odisha coast. Howrah, Hoogly, Kolkata, and East Medinipur districts reported squally winds reaching 45 to 55 kmph, gusting to 65 kmph, which are expected to strengthen to gale-force winds of 70 to 80 kmph, gusting to 90 kmph.
In preparation for the cyclone, the Bengal government evacuated approximately 110,000 people from coastal regions, including the Sundarbans and Sagar Island, to cyclone shelters. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) deployed 14 teams to vulnerable areas across nine districts in West Bengal, with additional teams on standby for rapid deployment if necessary.
The Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) Airport in Kolkata was shut from Sunday noon until 9am on Monday, resulting in the cancellation of 394 domestic and international flights.
Also Read | Cyclone Remal: Passengers stranded at Kolkata airport as operations halted for 21 hours
A senior official said the cyclone may have become stronger than it was due to very high sea surface temperatures. “Severe cyclonic storm Remal did not intensify any further because of two reasons. First, the system was initially attached to the monsoon flow that did not allow it to intensify. When it detached from the monsoon flow, it had already reached close to the WB and Bangladesh coasts and did not have much time left to strengthen. Second, moderate amounts of wind shear was not favourable for the its intensification too,” said this expert, asking not to be named.
“We do not anticipate any major negative impact on the monsoon from this cyclone,” this person added.
The official said higher storm surge is likely on the Bangladesh side at nearly 3 metres. “Over the Indian Sunderbans, we expect the storm surge to be at least 1 metre high. It’s important to note that this is during high tide so inundation of low-lying areas is expected,” this person said.
Political parties called off planned rallies and roadshows for the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha polls in the affected areas. Samik Bhattacharya, Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson, said, “Safety of people comes first. We have cancelled several rallies that were to be addressed by senior leaders including our state president Sukanta Majumdar.” Trinamool Congress national general Abhishek Banerjee also cancelled his roadshow at Basirhat constituency in North 24 Parganas.
The IMD warned of extremely heavy rainfall in the coastal districts on May 26 and 27. Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim assured citizens that the Kolkata Municipal Corporation put its employees on high alert and is personally overseeing the preparations. “Around 15,000 civic employees have been mobilised. IMD has said windspeed in Kolkata can go up to 80 kmph. All our pumps have been kept ready in case heavy rain leads to water logging in the streets,” Hakim said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday chaired a meeting to review the preparedness for the cyclone, asking the Union home ministry to monitor the situation and take a review after the cyclone’s landfall to extend necessary assistance for restoration.
During the meeting at his 7, Lok Kalyan Marg residence, the Prime Minister instructed that apart from 12 National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) teams that have already been deployed in West Bengal and one in Odisha, more teams be kept on standby to move within an hour, a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said.
