A cyclone on India's west coast has killed at least 19 people and damaged infrastructure and agriculture, while heavy rains continued to lash some regions even as weather officials said on Tuesday that the storm's intensity had weakened.
127 missing after vessel sinks in, says Indian Navy
The vessel was carrying 273 people when it started drifting on Monday as strong winds battered India's western coast, sending huge waves crashing onto its shores and turning roads into rivers
Some 127 people were missing Tuesday after a vessel adrift off Mumbai's coast sank during Cyclone Tauktae, the Indian navy said as two ships and helicopters were deployed to assist in the search.
The vessel was carrying 273 people when it started drifting on Monday as strong winds battered India's western coast, sending huge waves crashing onto its shores and turning roads into rivers.The defence ministry said 146 people were rescued from the vessel, which was operated by a state-run oil company, with operations expected to continue throughout the day in "extremely challenging sea conditions".
The colossal cyclone — the biggest to hit the region in decades — claimed lives in Kerala, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat as savage winds swept through flimsy homes and uprooted trees and electricity pylons.
It sank a barge hired by state-run explorer Oil & Natural Gas Corp. prompting a massive operation to rescue 96 people missing from the vessel.
“Long-range maritime surveillance aircraft were assisting the rescue effort but bad weather was hampering operations,” Indian Navy Spokesman Vivek Madhwal said, adding that about 177 people, who were on the barge, were rescued in a night-long operation.Another warship of the Indian Navy sailed out on Tuesday to rescue hundreds of people from two other ONGC-operated barges, which were adrift in high seas, Madhwal said.
Indian Navy ships and vessels of Indian Coast Guard and ONGC have joined the rescue operations, the company said in a statement. The cyclone was equivalent of a category 3 hurricane, with waves as high as eight meters. ONGC has major production installations and drilling rigs in the area.
Cyclone Tauktae, which slammed India’s western Gujarat state Monday night, will gradually weaken in the next three hours, according to the India Meteorological Department. Heavy rain is likely to continue in parts of the western state of Gujarat, with wind speeds reaching as high as 125 kilometers (78 miles) per hour, it said.
The intensity of the cyclone is similar to the one that hit Gujarat in 1998, according to Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general of the national weather forecaster.
Cyclone Tauktae struck at a time when the country is battling a coronavirus pandemic. Hospitals and crematoriums in India are getting overwhelmed amid the world’s fastest-surging outbreak.
Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra state that escaped the worst of the storm, canceled coronavirus vaccinations at public centers on Monday and moved more than 600 patients from the so-called jumbo facilities — makeshift hospitals to accommodate the surge in infections — to government-run hospitals. The city’s international airport was shut for most of the day.
Ports in Gujarat remained closed on Tuesday because of the turbulent sea conditions and high wind speed, according to a state government official handling port operations. A decision on resumption will be taken depending on the situation in the afternoon.
Gujarat
The cyclone Tauktae, which made landfall in the western state of Gujarat late on Monday, has hit power supply in 2,400 villages in the state as a thousand electricity pylons were damaged, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said in a media address.
Severe cyclonic storm Tauktae that is hovering over Saurashtra in Gujarat would move north-northeastwards and weaken gradually into a cyclonic storm during next three hours, informed the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday.
"Severe cyclonic storm 'Tauktae' lay centered at 08:30 hrs IST of May 18 over Saurashtra, about 130 kilometers south-southwest of Surendranagar and 10 kilometers east of Amreli. It would move north-northeastwards and weaken gradually into a cyclonic storm during the next three hours," IMD tweeted.
Nearly 160 roads have been destroyed, 40,000 trees uprooted and several houses damaged, Rupani added.
"Heavy rains and wind speeds of up to 100-110 kmph (62-68 mph) are continuing at many places, and the whole administration remains on standby to deal with any situation," he added.
More than 200,000 people had been evacuated from their homes
The cyclone which was categorized as "extremely severe" weakened to a "very severe" storm after making landfall, the Indian Meteorological Department said. The intensity is set to reduce further in the next few hours, it added.
Tauktae, the most powerful cyclone in more than two decades, piles pressure on India which is already grappling with a staggering spike in coronavirus cases and deaths as well as a shortage of beds and oxygen in hospitals.
"Our priority is to clear the roads, so there is no impact on oxygen movement" due to the cyclone, said Gaurang Makwana, the top official of Bhavnagar district in Gujarat.
Rupani assured that oxygen manufacturing had not been hit and hospitals with COVID-19 patients remained unaffected. A survey has also been initiated in Gujarat to ascertain the agricultural losses due to the cyclone.
"The standing crops would have suffered definite losses, especially in areas of Saurashtra where the cyclone hit the hardest," said Manish Bhardwaj, principal secretary at the state agriculture department. Before reaching Gujarat, the cyclone left a trail of destruction as it brushed past the coastal states of Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, as well as Maharashtra, home to India's financial hub of Mumbai, authorities said.
The Indian navy said it had rescued 177 people from one of two barges that were adrift near the Mumbai coastline, adding that planes and helicopters had been deployed to scour the seas.
NO DAMAGE TO PORTS AND REFINERIES
In Gujarat, no damages have been reported at the refineries and seaports that were expected to be in the storm's path. At the Jamnagar refinery, the world's biggest oil refinery complex that is owned by Reliance Industries, no damage was reported, a company spokesman told Reuters.
Operations at the Mundra port, India's largest private port, have resumed, a port official said. The Kandla Port, the largest government-run port in the country, has however not resumed operations as wind speeds of more than 70 kmph made it unsafe to do so, port officials said.
"We may resume operations in the afternoon today depending on the weather conditions," SK Mehta, chairman of Kandla Port, said, adding there was no damage in the port.
Meanwhile Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday spoke to the chief ministers of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan and took stock of the situation in their states after the landfall of Cyclone Tauktae, official sources said.
They said the minister talked to the CMs over the telephone and extended support of the Union government in aiding and mitigating challenges that arose in the aftermath of the 'extremely severe cyclonic storm' battering the costal areas on the country's western shore along the Arabian Sea.
Home Ministry officials said Shah spoke to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, his Gujarat counterpart Vijay Rupani and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.