Gujarat evacuates over 2 lakh from coastal belt before cyclone Tauktae

Most of the coastal areas of Gujarat started witnessing heavy rainfall and high velocity winds Monday.

People move a fishing boat to a safer place along the shore ahead of Cyclone Tauktae in Veraval in Gujarat. (Reuters)

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani during a press conference Monday stated that maximum people have been evacuated from along the coastal belt Saurashtra and Kutch.

Also, to take care of uninterrupted oxygen supply to Covid-19 and other patients admitted at hospitals, 35 green corridors have been created.

“Evacuation has been ordered for citizens residing in kuccha houses too from interior areas and along river banks,” the CM had stated.

As many as 2,00,458 persons people have been evacuated from 840 villages of 18 districts to 2045 safer shelter homes, till Monday evening, of which 1.25 lakh are from highest affected districts of Porbandar, Junagadh, Gir Somnath, Amreli and Bhavnagar.

Giving details of preparedness and evacuation operations, Additional Chief Secretary of Revenue department Pankaj Kumar, during a briefing, stated that 19,811 fishermen have been called back to the shore and more than 11,000 saltpan workers have been evacuated.

“For evacuation, rescue and relief operations, 44 NDRF teams, 10 SDRF teams in close assistance from local police, home guard, gramrakshal dal and fire brigade have been put on stand-by position,” Kumar added.

The most affected districts are Porbandar, Amreli, Junagadh, Gir Somnath, Botad, Bhavnagar, Devbhoomi Dwarka, Kutch, Jamnagar, Rajkot, Mori, Valsad, Surat, Vadodara, Bharuch, Navsari, Anand and Ahmedabad.

As per the India Meteorological Department (IMD’s) bulletin, the extremely severe cyclonic storm “Tauktae” lies centred over eastcentral and adjoining northeast Arabian Sea at 4.30 pm, about 190 km west-northwest of Mumbai, 90 km southeast of Diu.

Rupani said generator sets along with diesel stock have been arranged in over 1,400 Covid-19 hospitals across the state in case of power failure. “We have made alternate arrangements at all hospitals in case of power supply is affected. As many as 661 teams of electricity department teams who are working around the clock have been deployed,” the CM stated adding that 444 teams of health department too have been deployed across the state.

Further, the state government has formed Rapid Restoration Response teams including 661 teams of electricity department, 287 from road and buildings (R&B) department, 276 from forest department and 367 teams of revenue department. These RRR teams have been deployed to take immediate action to clear roads blocked due to felling of trees.

While control rooms are operational 24×7, social service organisations and other agencies have been roped in for assisting the state government teams.