Tens of thousands of people were preventively evacuated in three Indian states before the expected arrival, Sunday, September 26, of Cyclone Gulab on the east coast of India, authorities said.
The cyclone and its expected gusts of up to 95 km / h are expected to reach land between the two coastal states of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, according to the Indian Meteorological Department. Coming from the Bay of Bengal, the storm will also be accompanied by “Extremely violent rains”, added the organization in a weather report.
The authorities of the two threatened states have therefore asked people living near the coast to fall back to shelters while hundreds of rescuers have been sent to the region.
More and more cyclones
Authorities in West Bengal, north of Odisha, have announced that they will also take precautions, although the state is not expected to be affected directly. “We have already evacuated more than 20,000 people in schools and government buildings transformed into cyclone shelters”one of the state officials, Bankim Hazra, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). In Odisha, evacuation is already underway in seven districts, according to an official, PK Jena, while in Andhra Pradesh, 85,000 people must be displaced.
The northern Indian Ocean is increasingly regularly and severely hit by cyclones, an aggravation that scientists attribute to global warming.
In May, Cyclone Yaas, with gusts of up to 155 kilometers per hour, left thousands of Indians homeless behind and killed at least 20 people. Damage had amounted to more than two billion dollars in Odisha, West Bengal and neighboring Bangladesh.
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