Cyclone Amphan kills 12 people in West Bengal, power outages in several areas of Kolkata

21may2020

Cyclone Amphan , which made landfall in West Bengal’s Digha on Wednesday evening, has killed 21 people so far in India and Bangladesh , the Hindustan Times reported on Thursday. Twelve people were killed in West Bengal, two in Odisha and seven in Bangladesh.

Among those dead in Bangladesh are a five-year-old boy and a 75-year-old man, who were crushed under falling trees. In Odisha, one of the deceased was an infant, who died when the mud wall of the family’s hut collapsed due to heavy rain.

The cyclone made landfall at 2.30 pm between Digha in West Bengal and Hatiya island in Bangladesh, PTI reported. It immediately flattened houses, uprooted trees and electric poles.

Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba reviewed the situation in the cyclone-hit areas of West Bengal and Odisha, along with state and central ministries on Thursday, ANI reported. Gauba ordered that officers of the central ministries and agencies should remain in touch with the governments of West Bengal and Odisha and provide all assistance expeditiously.

The Centre said that the home ministry will send out teams to assess the damage and submit a report. The West Bengal government told the Centre that there was major damage to agriculture, power, and telecommunication facilities in cyclone-affected areas. On the other hand, the Odisha government said that damage has been mainly limited to agriculture.

The National Disaster Response Force is moving more teams to West Bengal, to speed up restoration work, especially in Kolkata, the Centre said. It ordered the Food Corporation of India to ensure adequate supply of food grains to the state so that marooned people can be provided assistance.

“It’s a massive challenge for NDRF to carry out restoration work in view of Covid-19,” Director General

SN Pradhan told ANI. “But our teams were semi-prepared for Amphan as they were preparing for combination of Covid-19 and floods. Our personnel observe protocols of social distancing and sanitisation.”

‘Cyclone worse than coronavirus’: Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Wednesday that the cyclone’s impact on the state was worse than that of the coronavirus, and claimed the damages would be around Rs 1 lakh crore. “Area after area has been devastated,” she said, according to NDTV. “Communications are disrupted.” She added that though five lakh people have been evacuated, state authorities had not entirely anticipated the ferocity of the cyclone. The chief minister also said that the hardest-hit areas were not accessible.

Banerjee spent the entire day at a control room in Kolkata, The Indian Express reported. “On one hand we are fighting with Covid-19, on the other hand lakhs of migrants are coming back,” she said. “Over all this now the cyclone. I think that this is a disaster bigger than Covid-19. I would request [the Centre] please forget politics and cooperate with us and save the people.”

In Kolkata, strong winds upturned cars and felled trees and electricity poles. The streets were flooded, and several areas of the city lost electric supply. Though the storm abated, the devastation .