Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi chaired a high level meeting today to review the preparedness of States and Central Ministries & concerned agencies to deal with the situation arising out of the likely formation of Cyclone Remal. Prime Minister directed officials to take every possible measure to ensure that people are safely evacuated and to ensure maintenance of all essential services such as Power, Telecommunications, health, drinking water etc. and that they are restored immediately in the event of any disruption. He further directed them to ensure adequate storage of essential medicines & supplies and to plan for unhindered movement. He also directed for 24*7 functioning of control rooms.
Cyclone Remal is likely to make landfall between the coasts of West Bengal and Bangladesh on Sunday midnight, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. This is after a deep depression intensified into a cyclonic storm over the Bay of Bengal on Saturday evening. As per IMD, cyclone Remal is expected to make landfall between Sagar Island in West Bengal and Bangladesh's Khepupara on May 26.Cyclone Remal is the first cyclone over the Bay of Bengal in this pre-monsoon season. Cyclone Remal was named by Oman as per the standard convention of naming tropical cyclones in the region. In Arabic, Remal means sand.
Tropical cyclones are named by six Regional Specialised Meteorological Centres (RSMCs) and five Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres (TCWCs), with the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) being one of the RSMCs. The decision to name tropical cyclones in the Bay Of Bengal and Arabian Sea was made in 2000, by the twenty-seventh session of the WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones (PTC).The panel has 13 member nations including India, Bangladesh, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Maldives, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Qatar. Later, the IMD issued a new list of cyclone names after WMO/ESCAP PTC finalised and adopted them. The list contained 169 names where 13 names each were suggested by the 13 member nations on the panel.