Brewing worry: The guiding fishermen in view of Yaas. * PTI Very severe to hit north coast PM reviews preparations; landfall likely on May 26 evening shiv sahay singh coasts from the evening of in offshore activities. He May 24. “It would gradually spoke about the need to en- The depression over east- increase further becoming sure that time duration of central is very 90-100 gusting to 110 kmph outages of power supply and likely to move in a north- from 26th morning and in- communication network are northwest direction and in- crease thereafter becoming minimum and are restored tensify into a cyclonic storm. 155-165 kmph gusting to 185 swiftly,” the Prime Minister’s The system Yaas is expected kmph at the time of landfall Office said in a statement af- to cross the coast in north till 26th afternoon,“ a special ter a review meeting to over- Odisha- bet- bulletin issued by the IMD see the preparedness with ween Paradip and the Sagar late on Sunday evening said. senior officials. islands by the evening of The weather office has is- May 26 as a very severe cy- PM holds review meet sued an orange warning of clonic storm. Prime Minister Narendra extremely heavy rainfall at Officials at the Regional Modi on Sunday directed se- isolated places over Jhar- Meteorological Centre in nior officers to work in close gram, Medinipur, North & Kolkata on Sunday issued coordination with the States south , Howrah, warnings that squally winds to ensure safe evacuation of Hooghly, Kolkata in West of 40-50 kmph gusting to 60 people from high-risk areas. Bengal and , kmph are very likely to pre- “The Prime Minister in- , and vail over North Bay of Bengal structed all concerned de- in Odisha. and along and off Odisha– partments to ensure timely West Bengal– evacuation of those involved CONTINUED ON Ī PAGE 8 Very severe cyclone Yaas to hit north Odisha coast

Heavy to very heavy rainfall the civil administration at is predicted at a few places short notice. over Nadia, Bardhaman, Bankura, Purulia, Bhirb- Gearing up hum and heavy falls at iso- Chastened by the expe- lated places over Murshida- rience of bad, Malda and Dakshin which battered West Bengal Dinajpur Districts on May almost exactly a year ago, 26. killing more than 100 peo- The ple, the Kolkata Police con- (IAF) has airlifted 950 NDRF vened a joint co-ordination personnel and 70 tonnes of meeting with representa- load from Jamnagar, Varana- tives of the Civil Defence, Ar- si, and Arakonnam to my, Kolkata Municipal Cor- Kolkata, and poration and National Port Blair in 15 transport air- Disaster Response Force to craft, the Defence Ministry gear up for cyclone Yaas. said. IAF has also kept 16 Keeping the predicted transport aircraft and 26 path in mind, Odisha’s Spe- helicopters on standby. cial Relief Commissioner P. Navy and Coast Guard K. Jena, too, rushed to Bala- have deployed ships and sore to fine-tune prepared- helicopters for relief, search ness. With the districts of Ja- and rescue operations while gatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Engineer task force units of Bhadrak and Balasore likely Army, with boats and rescue to be impacted most, dis- equipment, are on standby trict administrations have for deployment. been asked to make evacua- Navy has also pre-posi- tion process foolproof. tioned diving and flood re- (With inputs from lief columns at Kolkata, Bhu- Dinakar Peri and baneswar and Chilika to aid Satyasundar Barik)