Cyclone likely to bring heavy rain to S Bengal

Kolkata: Cyclonic storm Jawad that formed over the west central Bay of Bengal at 11.30 am on Friday would intensify to a severe cyclonic storm on Saturday with a speed of around 90 to 100 kmph gusting to 110 kmph.

Following the directions of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the state government is leaving no stone unturned to ensure safety of its people and to combat the impact of the cyclonic storm in the South Bengal districts, including Kolkata.

Leave of all employees of concerned departments of the state government and different civic bodies, including Kolkata Municipal Corporation, have been cancelled. According to the Regional Meteorological Department at Alipore, the deep depression over west central Bay of Bengal moved north-north westwards with a speed of 25 kmph and intensified further into cyclonic storm Jawad. It lay centred over west central Bengal — that is about 420 km south-southeast of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh — at 11.30 am on Friday. It was around 530 km south southeast of Gopalpur and 650 km south-southwest of Paradip in Odisha.

It is likely to move north westwards and reach west-central Bay of Bengal off north Andhra Pradesh-south Odisha coasts by Saturday morning and subsequently it is likely to "recurve" north-northeast wards and move along Odisha coast reaching near Puri on Sunday noon. Thereafter it is likely to continue to move north-northeast wards towards the Bengal coast. The maximum wind speed of the cyclonic storm would go up to 110 kmph and it would be at around 5.30 pm on Saturday.

It would result in thunderstorms along with heavy rainfall in South Bengal districts. Squally winds at a speed of around 45-55 kmph gusting to 65 kmph is also likely to commence along and off Bengal coast from Saturday evening and become gale wind at a speed of 60-70 kmph gusting to 80 kmph from the Sunday morning for the next 12 hours.

Sixteen teams of NDRF have already been deployed at vulnerable areas of 12 South Bengal districts, including Kolkata. Coast Guards are busy doing aerial surveys. State Power minister Aroop Biswas and CMD of WBSEDCL Santanu Basu held a high-level meeting to ensure proper preparations to combat the impact of the cyclonic storm. A round the clock control room will be operational at Vidyut Bhawan. The helpline numbers are 8900793503 and 8900793504. The control room numbers of CESC are 9831079666 and 9831083700. Holidays of all employees of the Power department have been cancelled from December 4 to 7.

Regional managers would be in constant touch with the Power department officers posted in districts and at the block levels. Teams of officers and workers would be deployed at every block of the nine districts, including North and South 24-Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly, East and West Midnapore, Jhargram, Nadia and East Burdwan to undertake restoration work, if needed, on an immediate basis.

The KMC control room will be operational round-the-clock on Saturday and Sunday. Commissioner Binod Kumar has allotted shifts to officials who will be manning the control room on those two days. The leave of all employees of solid waste management, water supply, drainage department have been cancelled for Saturday and Sunday and officials of other departments too have been asked to be on alert. The footpath dwellers will be shifted to night shelters, community halls or corporation schools with the help of Kolkata Police. The control numbers are 033-22861313/1212/ 1414.

It was the Chief Minister's brainchild to set up customs hiring centres (CHCs) at the block levels. There are at present 1835 CHCs with heavy agri-machineries and this time again the combined harvesters are helping to harvest paddy in record time with the prediction of cyclonic storm. All officials of the state Agriculture department in districts were engaged to ensure the same.