KOLKATA: Cyclone Dana uprooted trees and power lines after making landfall on India’s east coast, with officials warning of more fierce weather on Friday.
Cyclones — the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the northwestern Pacific — are a regular and deadly menace in the northern Indian Ocean.
At least 1.1 million people in the states of Odisha and West Bengal were relocated to storm shelters before the eye of the cyclone reached the coast just after midnight.
District official Siddarth Swain said that the storm had left a “trail of destruction” in the coastal town of Puri.
“Many trees and electric poles are uprooted,” he added. “Makeshift shops on the sprawling beach have been blown away.”
No casualties have been reported so far.
Dana flooded parts of the coast after triggering a surge in sea levels of up to 1.15 meters (3.75 feet).
On landfall the storm had gusting winds up to 120 kilometers per hour, Kolkata-based weather bureau forecaster Somenath Dutta said.
The Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world, was hit by a “gale force wind” that caused hundreds of trees to be uprooted, West Bengal minister Bankim Chandra Hazra said.
“The cyclone also damaged hundreds of homes, blowing off roofs in coastal areas,” he added.
Major airports have been shut since Thursday night in Kolkata, India’s third-biggest city and a key travel hub, which was lashed by heavy rains.
Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world heats up due to climate change driven by burning fossil fuels.
Warmer ocean surfaces release more water vapor, which provides additional energy for storms, strengthening winds.
A warming atmosphere also allows storms to hold more water, boosting heavy rainfall.
But better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced death tolls.
In May, Cyclone Remal killed at least 48 people in India and at least 17 people in Bangladesh, according to government figures.
Trees and power lines flattened as Cyclone Dana hits India
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Trees and power lines flattened as Cyclone Dana hits India
- Cyclones are a regular and deadly menace in the northern Indian Ocean
- At least 1.1 million people in the states of Odisha and West Bengal were relocated to storm shelters
UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza
- In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out
- Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
The ban includes Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority of whom are in Gaza.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
