Kolkata: The Met officials said that Cyclone Yaas will make landfall at North of Dhamra and South of Balasore in Odisha.
“The severe cyclone Yaas has been extremely powerful and is gradually gaining more power. It is currently located at 200 km in south-south east of Paradip in Odisha and 240 km from Digha in West Bengal. It will move North-North Westerly and during the wee hours it will get close to Dhamra port,” claimed IMD East Zone director Sanjib Bandhopadhyay.
Meanwhile, the Met Office also confirmed that severe cyclonic storm Yaas will not affect Kolkata like it did during Cyclone Amphan.
“Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly and North 24 Parganas will receive heavy to very heavy rainfall but will not have any devastating effect in these places as the landfall of the cyclone Yaas is 200 km away from Kolkata and the wind speed in these places will be 80-90kmph,” mentioned Sanjib.
Notably, as the time of the landfall got nearer, sea at Digha became extremely rough with gale wind speed up to 80 kmph.
Meanwhile, West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar visited the Regional Meteorological Department before visiting West Bengal state secretariat to take stock of the preparedness and seriousness of the cyclone.
In Odisha, over 2.4 lakh people were evacuated from the Bhadrak area near Dhamra due to the cyclone Yaas.
According to the Odisha Meteorological Department the Cyclone is moving at a speed of around 15 kmph and is likely to make landfall between Basudevpur in Bhadrak district and Bahanaga in Balasore and the process will begin at 4 am and continue for four hours till 8 am.
“Over 2.5 lakh have already been evacuated from low-lying and vulnerable areas to safer places. 52 teams of NDRF, 60 teams of ODRAF, 206 Fire Service teams are pressed to action. Abiding to pandemic protocols, 860 permanent shelters and 6200 temporary shelters are set up,” said Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) Pradeep Kumar Jena.