Cyclone Midhili weakens into depression; no fresh rain in Tripura, Mizoram on Saturday

Agartala/Aizawl/Canning: With cyclone Midhili weakening into a depression, Tripura and Mizoram, which were battered by heavy rain the previous day, did not experience showers on Saturday, officials said.

According to the latest IMD (India Meteorological Department) update, the cyclonic storm, after crossing the Bangladesh coast, weakened into a deep depression, and later into a depression, and lay 50 km east-southeast of Tripura's capital Agartala.

Skies remained clear in Mizoram, while overcast conditions prevailed in Tripura but neither of the northeastern states received any fresh rain since the early hours of Saturday. No damages have been reported so far.

Sundarbans area in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district received light showers on Friday but did not witness any fresh rainfall on Saturday. Fishermen, however, did not venture into deep seas as advised by the Met department.

"Deep depression (remnant of cyclonic storm Midhili) over Tripura & adjoining Bangladesh weakened into a depression and lay about 50 km east-southeast of Agartala and 160 km southwest of Silchar. To weaken into a WML (well-marked low pressure area) over south Assam and adjoining Mizoram-Tripura during next six hours," an IMD bulletin issued on Saturday morning said.

In view of the earlier IMD prediction of heavy rain, the Tripura government declared a holiday on Saturday for all government and private schools and anganwadi centres in the state.

Chief Minister Manik Saha, who is currently in Delhi, said in a Facebook post on Friday: "The meteorological department has predicted heavy rainfall with high velocity wind and lightning for two days i.e. Friday and Saturday due to cyclonic storm Midhili." "The state administration is fully ready to meet any eventuality. Considering the gravity of the alert, all the government and private schools and anganwadi centres will remain closed on Saturday," he added.

In a special bulletin, the met department had said, "Under the influence of the cyclonic storm, an increase in rainfall activities accompanied with heavy rainfall at isolated places is very likely to occur over Tripura during 17th and 18th November." Due to heavy showers coupled with gusty wind, air services were badly affected at Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport in Agartala on Friday as three scheduled flights, two from Kolkata and one from Guwahati, could not land on the runway, an official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said.

However, flight services remained unaffected on Saturday as no fresh rainfall was witnessed since 4 am on Saturday.

On Friday, heavy rainfall affected normal life in Tripura as most people remained at home, while power supply was affected in some areas of Agartala.