Cyclone Yaas started its landfall. Before the landfall of Cyclone Yaas, the sea became extremely rough and much of the coastal areas of West Bengal were flooded.
East Midnapore district of West Bengal was the worst affected area.. The whole of Digha has been flooded.
The West Bengal Chief Minister said that 51 dams in East Midnapore district have been breached. According to her, 3.7 lakh people have been evacuated from East Midnapore so far. Troops will be deployed where needed.
Odisha is anticipated to bear the maximum brunt of wind and rainfall with some impact on West Bengal, primarily driven by surge and rainfall-induced floods, particularly in the coastal districts.
Very severe cyclonic storm, Yaas started making landfall over Odisha-West Bengal coasts at 9am, Wednesday. During landfall, its wind speed was 130 to 140 kmph gusting to 155 kmh, lower than earlier expected.
Floods in West Bengal as Cyclone Yaas
“We have been able to evacuate a total of 1.5 million people. Many areas are being to submerged in the floodwaters. What you see in the water is horrible. A total of 20,000 houses have been damaged. We’re keeping an eye on the developments,” West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee said.
According to Mamata Banerjee’s report, 60 km of embankments have been damaged in the coastal areas. Many dams have been broken. Even Nandigram has been flooded.
“We are not seeing rapid intensification of this cyclone because its interaction with land has already started. The outer cloud bands of Yaas are over land.
The system is close to Paradip also. Comparatively, Yaas had less time over Sea which has prevented intensification to an extremely severe or super cyclone,” Sunitha Devi, in charge, cyclones at IMD, had said on Tuesday.
The major impact of the cyclonic system is to expected across the north-eastern coastal districts of India. Odisha is to anticipated to bear the maximum brunt of wind and rainfall with some impact on West Bengal, primarily driven by surge and rainfall-induced floods, particularly in the coastal districts.
Additionally, very rough to high seas, squally weather and gale winds around the system centre will affect shipping vessels and fishing operations, RMSI, a global disaster risk management company said in its bulletin on Yaas.