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Tropical Cyclone Tauktae, a storm with a hurricane equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane in the Arabian Sea, made landfall in Gujarat on Monday night in local time.
According to the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center, it intensified slightly when it reached the western state, with a constant maximum wind speed of 205 km per hour.
By Tuesday morning, the storm had gone from a “severe cyclonic storm” to a “severe cyclonic storm,” the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
The photos and videos show how heavy rains turned roads into rivers and a frenzied wind swept through trees and power lines. According to the country’s authorities, the cyclone claimed the lives of at least 26 people in the coastal states.
According to disaster management authorities, people have died as a result of drowning at sea, landslides, lightning and other accidents related to adverse weather conditions.
All of this hit India in the wake of the second wave of coronavirus, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives since mid-March.
Although the number of daily cases began to decline last week, the number of deaths related to COVID-19 is still at a record high and the crisis is far from over, especially in rural areas with fewer resources and medical facilities.
COVID-19 patients were among the hundreds of thousands of people who were evacuated from low-lying areas this week in preparation for the cyclone to hit the region. In Mumbai, 580 temporary care center patients were transferred to various hospitals on Friday and Saturday, the city council said.
This is not the first time that India has faced natural disasters during a pandemic; Last year, in late May and early June, the country faced cyclones that also forced a massive evacuation.
But then there were relatively few diseases in India, less than 10,000. per day, and a strict closure was launched in the country.
This time, India is the global epicenter of a pandemic. Their healthcare system collapsed and patients still die from lack of oxygen and other means. The government is more vulnerable and more closely monitored than before, while at the same time trying to control the outbreak, it also faces harsh criticism both at home and abroad.
The cyclone could only be a prophet of an even bigger disaster as the monsoon season approaches in India, which lasts for several months.
Double hit
More than 200,000 people were evacuated from Gujarat’s coastal areas on Monday. people, said the chief minister of the state, Vijay Rupani. More than 2,000. the villages lost electricity. In 484 villages it was rebuilt.
IMD warned that storm surge could cause large 4-year coastal flooding in the region.
In Ahmedabad, the most populous city in Gujarat, almost 102mm of rain could fall in the next 24 to 48 hours, more than the average rainfall in January-June.
According to the top ministers of both states, thousands of people in Kerala and Karnataka are seeking refuge in the camps, and many houses are damaged.
India’s National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has deployed more than 100 teams to six coastal states to assist victims. Indian military forces were also used.
On Saturday, the Navy reported rescuing 177 people from a sunken barge in an oil field off the coast of Mumbai.
The cyclone to the north is also affecting pandemic response efforts.
Of the 400 COVID-19 hospitals in Gujarat, the power supply was interrupted by a hundred, it reported on Tuesday. All hospitals have backup generators, but in four hospitals these devices failed and lost power.
“This cyclone is a terrible double whammy for millions of people in India whose families have faced COVID-19 infections and deaths,” said Udaya Regmi, director of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in South Asia in a statement Monday. “Many families barely float.”
The upcoming monsoon season is making the situation even more complicated. Every year in June, heavy monsoon rains begin, lasting until early autumn, replenishing the water reserves that farmers use to irrigate their crops.
However, torrential rains are also constantly overloading flood management systems and causing severe damage in severely affected areas.
The monsoon season has intensified over the years as climate change has made the weather more extreme and unpredictable. 2018 In the state of Kerala alone, hundreds of people died in August. floods. 2019 more than 1.6 thousand people died during the monsoon season across the country. people.
A study published earlier this year estimates that each degree of global warming is likely to increase India’s monsoon rains by 5 percent. This means that the monsoon seasons will be even more tragic.
Although the monsoon season will start only on June 1 this year, it could start earlier due to Cyclone Tauktae and changing winds, according to CNN meteorologists.
Prepared according to CNN inf.
