Ahmedabad: Tropical storm ‘Tauktae’ (pronounced as Tau’Te) which had intensified into a very severe cyclonic storm with winds gusting up to 185 km per hour made landfall on the Gujarat coast Monday night and soon after the landfall, heavy rains lashed Ahmedabad city of Gujarat. The cyclonic storm made its landfall around 8 pm on Monday in Veraval area between Porbandar and Mahuva and is expected to continue till 11 pm tonight. As per the latest updates by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the Cyclone centre is 35 km East-southeast of Diu and will cross Saurashtra coast to the east of Diu within the next 3 hours.
Earlier, all major airports in the state shut down all their air services as a precautionary measure. Barring the Rajkot airport, which will remain shut for flights till May 19, three other major airports – Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara – will remain closed for both domestic and international flights till Tuesday morning at 5 am.
Meanwhile, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has deployed 44 teams in Gujarat for any untoward incident that might occur due to the landfall.
More details to follow