Heavy rains and howling winds are lashing eastern India as the COVID-stricken country’s second cyclone in as many weeks makes landfall, killing at least two people in Odisha state and forcing more than 1.2 million people to seek shelter, reports Aljazeera.
One person died in Keonjhar district’s Panchapalli village in Odisha after a tree fell on him, local official Saroj Kumar Dutta told Al Jazeera, shortly after Cyclone Yaas, packing gusts of up to 140 kph (87 mph), made landfall at about 9am local time (03:30 GMT) on Wednesday.
In the state’s Mayurbhanj district, the dead body of a 15-year-old boy was found in a pond at Jagannath Khunta village by a National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) classified Yaas as a “very severe cyclonic storm”, as television broadcast images of rough seas, strong winds and rains lashing the state of Odisha, with shops and homes boarded up.
“The landfall process started at 9am today. It will continue up to three or four hours,” Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, the IMD director-general, told Al Jazeera. By noon, the cyclone would cross Odisha and its neighbour, West Bengal, weather officials said.
Scientists say cyclones are becoming more frequent and severe in the northern Indian Ocean as climate change warms the sea, devastating coastal communities.
Last week, Cyclone Tauktae tore up the western coast, triggering mass evacuations and claiming at least 155 lives.
Tornado kills two in West Bengal
Storm surges have been forecast in the low lying areas of Odisha and West Bengal states. A tornado that preceded the storm killed two people as it tore through West Bengal’s Hooghly district, authorities said.
Kolkata, West Bengal’s main city, ordered its international airport to shut down for most of Wednesday. The airport in Odisha’s capital, Bhubaneswar, followed suit.
“Every life is precious,” said Odisha’s Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik as he appealed for people not to “panic” and to move away from the coast.
His West Bengal counterpart Mamata Banerjee told reporters that about 20,000 mud houses and temporary shelters had been damaged in the state.
“I have not seen anything like this before,” said another state minister, Bankim Hazra, after seawater gushed into the low-lying areas of Sagar island in the Bay of Bengal and the tourist town of Digha, where a police station was flooded.
“Successive high tides battered the coastline,” he added. “It is inundation all around and villages are cut off.”
A record 4,800 disaster workers had been positioned in the two states, equipped with tree and wire cutters, emergency communications, inflatable boats and medical aid, the NDRF said.
“We are on alert, keeping an eye on the cyclone. Though the wind speed is high, wherever possible we are moving to fields and rescuing people. We are trying to maintain the communication system too,” NDRF official Arun Devgam told Al Jazeera.
The Indian navy said its Chilka naval base was monitoring ships in the area and was ready to mount rescue and relief operations.
‘Double trouble’
While masks have been distributed in emergency shelters and relief workers are trying to impose social distancing, many officials fear the new cyclone will only speed up the spread of the virus.
“This cyclone spells double trouble for millions of people in India as there is no respite from COVID-19,” said Udaya Regmi, the South Asia head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
The storm “is a terrible blow for many people in coastal districts whose families have been struck down by COVID-19 infections and deaths,” West Bengal minister Bankim Chandra Hazra told the AFP news agency.
Hazra added that it would be “a big challenge” to maintain social distancing in the emergency shelters.
Some vaccination centres in threatened districts as well as Kolkata suspended operations because of the storm and a special operation had been launched to ensure the supply of oxygen and medicines to hospitals, officials said.
Some of the deadliest storms in history have formed in the Bay of Bengal, including one in 1970 that killed half a million people in what is modern-day Bangladesh.
Odisha’s worst-ever cyclone in 1999 killed 10,000 people. Last year Cyclone Amphan, the worst since 1999, caused widespread devastation but timely evacuations meant fatalities were fewer than 150.