Government gets ready to tackle Cyclone Hudhud

With Cyclone Hudhud set to touchdown on the country’s east coast by noon on October 12, the Centre on Thursday held a review meeting on disaster preparedness and asked the Odisha and Andhra Pradesh governments to take necessary precautions.

The meeting of the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) was chaired by Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth, who asked all central ministries and departments, as well as the chief secretaries of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, to ensure that the cyclone causes minimum damage.

Cyclone Hudhud  is likely to make its landfall near Vishakhapattanam around 11:30 am on Sunday, the Met Department has said. On Thursday, however, the department said the cyclone would make its landfall somewhere between Vishakhapattanam and Gopalpur in Odisha’s Ganjam, one of the 15 most cyclone prone districts in the state.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has already stationed five battalions on high-alert in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar.

In Andhra Pradesh, six rescue and relief teams have been deployed at Srikakulam, Vijay Nagaram, Visakhapattam and East Godavari, while in Odisha, nine NDRF teams are being considered for deployment in Gajpatti, Ganjam, Khurda, Cuttak, Puri and Balasore.

The Met department has predicted heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places and extremely heavy rain at isolated places (over 24.5 cm) in east Godavari, Visakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram and Srikakulam districts of north coastal Andhra Pradesh and south Odisha from Saturday onwards.