The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
The biggest cyclonic storm over the Bay of Bengal in about two decades has slightly weakened before hitting the coasts of India and Bangladesh on Wednesday, with authorities making preparations to evacuate more than
5 million people to safer places.
Cyclone Amphan, equivalent of a category 4 hurricane at present, was expected to have a sustained wind speed of 200 to 210 kilometres (124-130 miles) per hour, according to the
India Meteorological Department. The speed may rise as high as 240 kilometres per hour, the weather office said.
Bangladesh was evacuating
2.2 million people from coastal districts, State Minister for Disaster Management Enamur Rahman said at a media briefing in Dhaka.
The country planned to raise the danger signal to the maximum level at 6 am Wednesday and it will be impossible to evacuate people after the “great danger signal†is announced, Rahman said.
The storm will be intense enough to damage crops, plantations, trees, mud houses and communication and electric poles, as well as disrupt road traffic and transportation of essential goods.
Large boats and ships may get torn from their moorings, according to the meteorological department. The storm threatens lives of people and animals as the wind speed is likely to be as high as 185 kilometres per hour during its landfall.
The cyclone is set to cause further miseries to India and Bangladesh, which are witnessing a slump in economic activities, like many other countries, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Indian economy is headed for its first full-year contraction in more than four decades, while Fitch Solutions in April lowered Bangladesh’s GDP growth forecast.
Amphan is forecast to be the worst storm over the Bay of Bengal since the 1999 super cyclone that hit the eastern Indian state of Odisha, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general of the weather office, said on Tuesday. India’s worst-ever cyclone had killed about 10,000 people in the state two decades ago.
The severe cyclonic storm was expected to cross coasts between Digha in India and Hatiya islands in Bangladesh during the second half of Wednesday, the weather department said. Some places in Odisha and West Bengal are forecast to receive heavy rainfall.