Cyclone Yaas to turn severe by Tuesday after noon

The Cyclonic Storm Yaas is very likely to move slowly towards north-northwestwards, intensify further into a severe Cyclonic Storm during the next 24 hours and into a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm during the subsequent 24 hours. It would continue to move north-northwestwards, intensify further and reach Northwest Bay of Bengal near north Odisha and West Bengal coasts by early morning on Wednesday. It is very likely to cross north Odisha-West Bengal coasts between Paradip and Sagar islands as a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm around Wednesday noon. The Deep Depression over East central Bay of Bengal remained practically stationary during the past 6 hours, intensified into Cyclonic Storm Yaas and lay centred over East central Bay of Bengal early Monday. It lay about 600 km north-northwest of Port Blair, 540 km south-southeast of Paradip, 650 km south-southeast of Balasore and 630 km south-southeast of Digha.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah chaired a meeting via video conference on Monday with the Chief Ministers of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and the Lieutenant Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands to review preparations in view of Cyclone Yaas. He directed senior officers to work in close co-ordination with states to ensure safe evacuation of people from high-risk areas. He also instructed all concerned departments to ensure timely evacuation of those involved in off-shore activities. Shah stressed on the need to ensure that time duration of outages of power supply and communication network are minimum and are restored swiftly. He also asked officials to ensure proper co-ordination and planning with state governments to ensure no disruptions in Covid treatment and vaccination in hospitals.