KOLKATA – At least 1.1 million people on India’s eastern coast are fleeing to storm shelters inland, hours before a powerful cyclone is expected to hammer the low-lying region, ministers said yesterday. 

Cyclone Dana was yesterday expected to hit the coasts of West Bengal and Odisha states – home to around 150 million people – in a “severe cyclonic storm”, India’s weather bureau said.

It predicted winds will be gusting up to 120 kilometres an hour.
Major airports will shut overnight,
including key travel hub Kolkata, where heavy rain was already lashing the sprawling megacity.

The eye of the storm is predicted to make landfall early today near the coal-exporting port of Dhamra, about 230 kilometres southwest of Kolkata.
It is also expected to impact neighbouring low-lying Bangladesh, where the leader of the interim government Muhammad Yunus said “extensive preparations” are being made.

Crashing waves are expected to inundate swathes of coastal areas, with water predicted to surge up to two metres above usual tide levels.
Odisha state health minister Mukesh Mahaling told AFP that “nearly a million people from the coastal areas are being evacuated to cyclone centres”.

In neighbouring West Bengal state, government minister Bankim Chandra Hazra said: “More than 100 000 people have so far been moved to safer places.” 

– Nampa/AFP