In view of the impending cyclone Amphan, Pradeep Jena, Special Relief Commissioner, said that following the lockdown norms, a number of large temporary shelters have been identified in the state.
"As this year we are facing the coronavirus threat, we cannot have infrastructure where people can be crammed into during cyclone. Keeping in mind the social distancing norms, a number of large temporary shelters with basic amenities have been identified to be used during the cyclone. These are basically school and college buildings," Jena told .
"Though further decision on evacuation operation will be taken only after today's update by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) at 9:30 pm, 18 teams of National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) and 20 teams of Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRF) have been prepared. Some of the teams have already reached the four districts which will be impacted the most during a cyclone - Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak, Baleshwar," he further said.
Cyclone Amphan, as per latest information by the IMD, is lying centred at about 980 km down south of Paradeep and it is moving in a northwesterly direction and it is expected that it will recurve by Sunday evening.
After recurve, it will move in a northeasterly direction towards the north Bay of Bengal. As per the latest trend analysis of IMD model, it is likely to make landfall on May 20 afternoon to evening between Sagar Island in West Bengal and Hatia Island in Bangladesh.
"Once the recurve process is completed it will be possible for IMD to give a much better and accurate forecast regarding the path, velocity, speed of the cyclone and time and place of landfall," Jena further said.
"As per IMD advisory, some rainfall would start around the evening of May 18 in southern coastal districts, wind speed might be 40-45 km per hour. On May 19, the whole coastal Odisha will experience moderate to heavy rainfall and wind speed may go up to 65 km per hour. On May 20 morning, the north Odisha districts including parts of Mayurbhanj are expected to have heavy to very heavy rainfall and wind speed may go up to 85-90 km per hour," he added.
( With inputs from ANI )