Cyclone Yaas intensified into a very severe cyclonic storm on Tuesday evening, India Meteorological Department Director General M Mohapatra said. The IMD has also issued a red-coded warning alert to the Odisha and West Bengal coasts. “The severe cyclonic storm ‘Yaas’ (pronounced as ‘Yass’) over northwest and Bay of Bengal intensified into a very severe cyclonic storm,” Mohapatra said. It is very likely to move north-northwestwards, intensify further and reach near north Odisha coast close to Dhamra port by the early morning of Wednesday.

 

“It is very likely to cross north Odisha-West Bengal coasts between Paradip and Sagar Islands close to north of Dhamra and south of Balasore, during noon of Wednesday, the 26th May as a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm,” the Cyclone Warning Division of the IMD said. The cyclone is being tracked by Doppler Weather Radar at Paradip, it added. Neighbouring Jharkhand has also sounded an alert and is preparing for the cyclone’s impact. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said that her administration has evacuated over nine lakh people to safe shelters. The Odisha Government, on the other hand, said it has moved over 2 lakh people from vulnerable areas in coastal districts to safety. Banerjee said over 74,000 officers and workers and over 2 lakh policemen and civic volunteers have been deployed to mitigate the natural calamity in West Bengal.

 

She said that National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) personnel have been deployed and Army’s help will be sought if required. “We have evacuated at least 9 lakh people to relief and flood centres. There are 4,000 flood centres in the State. “We are monitoring the situation 24/7. Control rooms have been set up at every block to monitor the situation, apart from the one at State Secretariat Nabanna,” she said. The Chief Minister said that senior IAS officers have been assigned to monitor the situation in different districts. “The chief and home secretaries are in touch with District Magistrates. I have spoken with the DMs of South and North 24 Parganas, Jhargram and Purba Medinipur districts. I will be at Nabanna to monitor the situation throughout the night,” she said. Banerjee said adequate arrangements have been made for Kolkata. Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Board of Administrators’ Chairman Firhad Hakim is monitoring the situation from home, she said. Special Relief Commissioner of Odisha, P K Jena, said that over 2.10 lakh people residing in kutcha houses in low-lying areas have been moved to cyclone shelters.

 

The highest number of evacuees are from Balasore district (74,132), followed by Bhadrak (73,103). Evacuation of people is also underway in Cuttack, Kendrapara, Keonjhar, Khurda, Jagastinghpur, Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Gajapati, Ganjam, Mayurbhanj, Nayagarh, Puri and Angul districts, he said. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has rushed Odisha’s Minister of State for Home, D S Mishra to Balasore to monitor the situation in the northern parts of the State. Jena said the four coastal districts of Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Bhadrak and Balasore are in the high-risk zone, while the impact of ‘Yaas’ will also be felt in Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Sundergarh, Dhenkanal, Angul, and parts of Puri and Khurda districts. Geographic Information System (GIS) firm Esri India on Tuesday released a map for the public to track the live path of Yaas cyclone.