Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked Home Minister Rajnath Singh to remain in touch with Chief Ministers of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh in view of Cyclone Hudhud.
Reviewing the preparedness for Cyclone at a high-level meeting in New Delhi this evening, Mr. Modi instructed senior officers of the government to maintain close contact and coordination with officers of the affected states, to ensure that relief and rescue operations proceed smoothly.
He said suitable arrangements should be made to inform people about the cyclone on a real-time basis.
During the meeting, the Prime Minister was briefed on evacuation and other ongoing precautionary and preparatory measures being undertaken for the cyclone.
These include deployment of teams from the Armed Forces and NDRF, positioning of boats, swimmers and relief camps and standby systems to restore power and telecom services in the area.
The meeting was attended by the Cabinet Secretary, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Union Home and Defence Secretaries and senior officials from the Met Department besides others.
The very severe cyclonic storm HUDHUD over west central Bay of Bengal is fast approaching towards the eastern coast and now lay centered about 350 km south-southeast of Gopalpur in Odisha.
The Indian Meteorological Department office at Bhubaneswar has said HUDHUD would cross north Andhra Pradesh coast around Visakhapatnam by tomorrow forenoon.
Meanwhile, the Odisha government has started evacuating people from vulnerable areas in southern parts of the state to safer places and multi-purpose cyclone centres as part of its efforts to ensure ‘zero casualty’ in the very severe cyclone HUDHUD heading towards the eastern coast.
The local administration, National Disaster Response Force and Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force. fire brigade personnel have been pressed into service to evacuate people in eight southern districts of Odisha.
Special Relief Commissioner of Odisha, PK Mohapatra, has said about 3.5 lakh people including tribal people from the inaccessible Bonda hills in Malkangiri would be evacuated. Many parts of Odisha have already started receiving rainfall.
The state expects heavy to very heavy rainfall with wind speeed of about 100 km per hour along and off Odisha coast from today night under the impact of cyclonic storm HUDHUD.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu today said, the state adminstartion has geared up to face any eventuality due to Severe Cyclonic Storm, Hud Hud.
He was reviewing the situation with senior officials and district administration. He said, with the Centre's cooperation, all arrangements have been kept in place to face the situation.
Speaking to All India Radio, Mr. Naidu said, the state will take help of technology to bring back normalcy soon.
Meanwhile, the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, INCOIS has issued warning over storm surge, stating that maximum height of storm surge will be 1.5 meters at Pedanayakapalem in Visakhapatnam district.
Mr. Chenoy also informed that waves may go up to a maximum height of six meters at some places during the landfall of the cyclonic storm.
The State Government has put five districts of Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and East and West Godavari on high alert as the very severe Cyclonic Storm Hud Hud is likely to landfall in Visakhapatnam District.
The state government has set up 370 relief camps and evacuating people from 396 villages from theses districts.
Thirty teams from Eastern Naval Command and one column of Army have been kept on standby at Visakhapatnam while 13 NDRF teams are in place to undertake relief and rescue operations.
Meanwhile, the West Bengal Government has issued alert warning in four Coastal Districts of the state in view of cyclonic storm Hudhud.
Chief Minister Miss. Mamata Banerjee on Saturday reviewed the preparedness of the coastal districts to deal with the situation.
A 24 our control room has been opened at the state secretariat to monitor the situation in the coastal areas.
The State Disaster Management Minister Javed Khan said that North and South 24 Parganas, East Midnapore and Howrah District administrations have been put on high alert. Leave of Government employs in the coastal districts have been cancelled.
Units of Disaster Managements Department have been kept ready to meet any eventuality.
Besides, cash contingency huge quantity of relief materials have also been sent to the coastal districts to meet any emergency situation arising out of the cyclone.
The State Government has issued advisory to the fishermen not to venture into the sea till next Monday.
Alert has also been sounded at sea town in Digha.
People residing at the coastal belts have also been evacuated.
The South-Eastern Railway has cancelled and diverted a number of long distance trains in view of the cyclone.
