AccuWeather has described Amphan as the first super cyclone in the Bay of Bengal since 1999, fearing the “ferocious” storm to unleash extreme impacts across Bangladeshi and northeastern Indian coastlines.
AMN / DHAKA
Authorities in Bangladesh has ordered evacuation of maximum possible number of people to safety before midnight tonight as intensifying wrath of the region’s first super cyclone in decades prompts the Met office to contemplate issuing the highest danger signal number in their existing scale.
The government has taken massive preparations to tackle super cyclonic storm ‘Amphan’ in the coastal belts of Khulna, Feni, Noakhali ,Satkhira, Bagerhat Patuakhali, Laxmipur and Barguna districts.
“The local authorities have been directed to complete the evacuation before midnight today,” State Minister for Disaster Management and Relief Dr Enamur Rahman told an emergency news briefing at his office here.
The disaster management ministry earlier set a target of evacuating over 2 million people to safety readying 12,078 cyclone shelter centres but the state minister said it could be difficult to move out people tomorrow as the killer storm continued to approach.
“The Met office could issue their highest ‘great danger signal’ at 6 am tomorrow monitoring the situation overnight . . . so our goal is to move out all vulnerable people to safety by tonight,” Rahman said.
He said a large number of people, however, by now were brought to cyclone shelters in 19 vulnerable districts in the country’s southern coastlines.
Meteorologists said in a scale of 11, great danger signal no 8, 9 and 10 carry identical meaning in terms of intensity while the numbers differ only to indicate approaching storms directions.
Signal no. 11 is called Communication Failure Signal No. XI, indicating severed communications of the meteorological warning centre to the affected region.
The meteorologists said the world largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, was likely to absorb the main brunt of the Amphan onslaughts as it did many times over the centuries, including that of the recent major storms, to minimise human casualties.
“The Sundarbans always absorbed the brunt of cyclones whichever hit the coastlines alongside the Bangladesh-India, we expect the forest to face the initial impact of Amphan like foot soldiers this time as well,” meteorology department director Shamsuddin Ahmed told newsmen.
Leading global storm tracker AccuWeather earlier today described Amphan as the first super cyclone in the Bay of Bengal since 1999, fearing the “ferocious” storm to unleash extreme impacts across Bangladeshi and northeastern Indian coastlines.