Rain and gusty winds have taken over coastal Odisha signaling a strike of severe cyclonic storm ‘Dana’ even as the IMD on Wednesday made it amply clear that the storm’s landfall would be in the Bhitarkanika National Park area in the Kendrapara district and Dhamra coast in the Bhadrak district.

In the run-up to the likely strike of ‘Dana’, the coastal patches of Odisha have come under a spell of adverse weather conditions accompanied by rain prompting the state government to start evacuating the people living along the vulnerable zones of 14 districts, mostly in coastal areas, in its bid to maintain the zero-fatality policy during natural disasters.

The coastal districts – Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Balasore, and Bhadrak – are likely to bear the maximum brunt of the cyclone. The administrations of these districts are on high alert ready to face any exigency.

The evacuation process has got underway to relocate 10 to 12 lakh people to the safety of cyclone shelters and temporary relief camps.

Signs of nature’s fury triggering havoc are palpable. Government agencies embarked on the evacuation operation well in advance as it began drizzling in the vulnerable Balasore, Bhadrak, Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur districts besides other parts of the state, said an official of the Special Relief Commissioner here.

As many as 3,000 vulnerable coastal villages across 14 districts have been identified for shifting the locals to safety. Directions have been issued to complete the evacuation well before Cyclone Dana causes landfall early on Friday, Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Suresh Pujari said.

People living in the vulnerable zones are being requested to cooperate with government agencies in this regard. Shelters are ready with all amenities like food, drinking water, and baby food with women police deployed in anticipation of any eventuality, he said.

As many as 288 rescue teams have been deployed in vulnerable areas across 14 districts, said an official.

The outer band of Cyclone ‘Dana’ has touched the land mass in the Bhadrak and Kendrapara districts at noon today as landfall between the Bhitarkanika National Park (the Kendrapara district) and Dhamra coast (the Bhadrak district) anticipated early Friday, with wind speeds reaching up to 120 kilometres per hour, IMD Bhubaneswar regional Centre’s senior IMD scientist Umashankar Das said.

In view of Cyclone Dana’s anticipated strike, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams are kept on standby. Besides, rescue and relief teams from the Army, Navy, and Coast Guard, along with ships and aircraft, have been placed on high alert, said an official of Odisha Special Relief Commissioner.

Besides, 20 teams from the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF) comprising nearly 1000 personnel have already been deployed mostly in vulnerable pockets of the Kendrapara, Bhadrak, Balasore, and Jagatsinghpur districts. These are equipped with modern technology, operational gadgets, power boats, and other state-of-the-art emergency equipment, the official added.

Meanwhile, the cyclonic storm over east central Bay of Bengal moved northwestwards with a speed of 12 kmph in the past six hours and lay centred at 1430 hrs 23rd October, over the east central & adjoining west-central Bay of Bengal near latitude 16.9° N and longitude 89.1°E, about 460 km southeast of Paradip (Odisha), 490 km south-southeast of Dhamara (Odisha) and 540 km south-southeast of Sagar Island (West Bengal), IMD said in its latest weather update.

The storm is likely to move northwestwards and intensify over the northwest Bay of Bengal by the early morning of 24th October and cross north Odisha and West Bengal coasts between Puri and Sagar Island close to Bhitarkanika and Dhamara (Odisha) during the night of 24th to the morning of 25th October as a severe Cyclonic Storm with a wind speed of 100-110 kmph gusting 120 kmph, it warned.

The cyclone’s impact is likely to be high in the Balasore and Bhadrak districts where the wind speed is expected to be 80 kmph or more. The districts will start experiencing strong wind from around 11 pm on Wednesday night. The wind speed may reach 100 to 120 kmph in the forenoon of Thursday.

In Bhubaneswar city and nearby areas, the wind speed is expected to be in the range of 45 to 60 kmph while it will be in the range of 75 to 90 kmph in the Jajpur and Mayurbhanj districts and 35-45 kmph in Ganjam district during the landfall.

Light rain is expected from Wednesday in the coastal region while the districts of Kendrapara, Bhadrak, Cuttack, Jajpur, Mayurbhanj, Khurda, and Dhenkanal will experience heavy to very heavy rainfall from Thursday morning, it said.

“We have faced cyclones with resilience in the past. As the danger is looming again we won’t take chances. By Thursday morning, we will shift to cyclone shelters and available government buildings”, said Ratnakar Rout, a native of seaside Satabhaya village in the Kendrapara district.