Severe cyclone 'Dana' begins landfall on Odisha coast

Bhubaneswar: The landfall process of severe cyclonic storm 'Dana' began on Odisha coast on Thursday night and was expected to continue till Friday morning, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

The coastal districts of Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Balasore and nearby Jagatsinghpur district witnessed sudden increase in wind speed which reached 100 kmph to 110 kmph and extremely heavy rain.

A revenue department official said reports of trees getting uprooted were also received at the office of the Special Relief Commissioner here.

However, there was no report of any major damage or casualty so far even as the landfall process started more than an hour ago, the official said.

The storm moved north-northwest at a speed of 15 kmph over the past six hours before making landfall between Bhitarkanika in the Kendrapara district and Dhamra in Bhadrak, with wind speeds of around 110 kmph, a senior IMD official said.

“The landfall process has commenced and the forward sector of the wall cloud region is entering into the land. The process will continue till Friday morning," Umashankar Das, a senior scientist at the Regional Meteorological Centre in Bhubaneswar, told PTI.

When the centre of the system reaches land, wind speeds are expected to reach 120 kmph, he said, adding that the landfall process will last for about four to five hours. "The system is under continuous surveillance of the Doppler weather radar at Paradip," he said.

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi said that both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah had enquired about the Odisha government’s preparedness to tackle the situation arising out of the cyclone.

The chief minister said that the state has already evacuated around 5.84 lakh people from the high risk zones located in the low-lying areas of coastal districts.

Meanwhile, IMD DG Mrutunjay Mohapatra said the region where the landfall commenced would witness high velocity wind at the speed of about 120 kmph till Friday morning. He said the landfall also accelerated the tidal surge, which could go up to two metres above the astronomical height, in Kendrapada, Balasore and Bhadrak districts. The landfall process of cyclone usually takes five to six hours, he said.

Mohapatra said that the system will continue to remain as the severe cyclonic storm will gradually weaken on Friday and move deeper in the state, triggering heavy rains in most places.

Gale with wind speed 100-110 kmph gusting to 120 kmph is already prevailing along and off north Odisha and is likely to continue till Friday morning and decrease gradually thereafter. Gale of wind speed reaching 60-80 kmph gusting to 90 kmph is likely along and off south Odisha till Friday morning and decrease gradually thereafter, the IMD said.

The weather agency has also said that light-to-moderate rainfall in most places and heavy-to-very heavy rainfall at a few places and extremely heavy rainfall (above 21 cm) at isolated places in Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Bhadrak, Kendrapada, Jagatsingpur Keonjhar, Jajpur, Cuttack and Dhenkanal, Khurda and Puri districts are expected till October 25.