India Western-Region Cyclone Response
Situation Report #2
th 18 May 2021
SITUATION IN NUMBERS
Highlights 23 lives lost (no child deaths) ▪ The extremely severe cyclone ‘TAUKTAE’ (pronounced as Tau’Te) made landfall across the Gujarat coast in Saurashtra region between across various states Diu and Una, starting from 2100 hours IST on 17th May to 0000 hours IST, 18th May 2021. Maximum sustained wind speed of 160-170 kmph 10 districts of Maharashtra (Indian Metrological Department) have been impacted
▪ Post-landfall it weakened into a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm, 17 districts of Gujarat are bringing strong winds, storm surge and flooding to coastal areas of impacted. 5 districts are Gujarat. It has further weakened into a Severe Cyclonic Storm and is worst affected. very likely to move north-northeastwards and weaken gradually into a Cyclonic Storm by 1730 hours IST of 18th May 2021. 1,532 houses damaged in ▪ Preliminary information from partners on day-1 in the most Kerala affected districts of Gir Somnath, Bhavanagar, Amreli, Botad and Junagarh of Gujarat suggests the damage was less than had been anticipated. 1,576 houses damaged in Maharashtra ▪ In Maharashtra, the information related to impacts of Cyclone TaukTae has become clearer over the last 24 hours 16,500 houses damaged in
▪ As per preliminary reports, around 40,000 trees have fallen, and Gujarat 16,500 houses damaged in Gujarat; 1532 houses damaged in Kerala and 1576 houses damaged in Maharashtra.
▪ There is no major damage to health facilities and related services reported in Gujarat.
▪ Intensive cyclone preparedness and response by State and district level Government in Gujarat has worked well in terms of timeliness of response using army, police and other Government institutions and services.
▪ UNICEF is on the ground and responding to the cyclone in partnership with the interagency group of Gujarat as well supporting Government led response.
▪ UNICEF is already responding to the COVID-19 crisis in Gujarat and 16 other states of India.
Situation Overview & Humanitarian Needs Post-landfall, cyclone Tauktae weakened into a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm, bringing strong winds, storm surge and flooding to coastal areas of Gujarat. It has further weakened into a Severe Cyclonic Storm and is very likely to move north-northeast wards and weaken gradually into a Cyclonic Storm by 1730 hours IST of 18th May 2021.230 COVID-ICU.
In Gujarat, the districts of Gir Somnath, Bhavanagar, Amreli, Botad, and Junagarh are the worst affected. Majority of 200,000 people were evacuated from 17 coastal districts of Gujarat to safer destinations and in 2000 shelters are expected to return to their homes by tomorrow. With 16500 houses damaged in Gujarat, about 36,000 people are expected to be in mass shelters for some more time. As of now, evacuated people are getting food and other necessary items in camps to practice CAB, but once they go back to their respective homes, they (plus other families) might be out of ration, hygiene items, loss of livelihood etc. The cleaning, repair and reconstruction of homes will be a major need. Major loss of Mango crop, other crops, huge number of cattle loss has been reported. The electricity and water supply infrastructure losses are being assessed and addressed on the go by state agencies. 629 incidences of power failure were reported, 440 were resolved to restore the electric supply in cyclone affected districts of Gujarat The Gujarat Chief Minister announced the suspension of COVID-19 vaccination drive for two days.
In Maharashtra, the 230 COVID-ICU patients shifted from the Jumbo COVID-19 Centres across Mumbai continue to be in other, more resilient hospitals. 43 wall collapse incidences have been recorded in the slums of Mumbai. 977 people are stranded in the sea on three barges and one platform in the Bombay High area. The Indian navy reported it had rescued 177 of the 270 people aboard and that efforts to find survivors were ongoing. Parts of the districts of Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra still do not have electricity supply restored. 120 teams of the power sector are functioning on ground across the state to restore power supply. Approx. 3,500 to 4,000 Ha of standing horticulture has been damaged in Maharashtra.
About 1.1 million people including 0.39 million children in 421 coastal villages of six districts of Gujarat are still at-risk of flooding (refer annexure) and health risks and are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
Leadership and coordination The Gujarat and Maharashtra Chief Ministers are closely monitoring the situation and coordinating the response via the State Control Rooms. The Union Home Minister spoke to the Chief Ministers of cyclone- affected states to take an update about the situation as well as enquire about any help required from the Centre. The union Defence minister has directed the three services (Army, Navy and Air Force) to provide all possible assistance to the civil administrations in the coastal states of Maharashtra and Gujarat in tackling the situation arising in the aftermath of cyclone Tauktae.
The Inter-Agency Group of Gujarat, a coalition of humanitarian agencies supported by UNICEF took stock of situation and finalised the scope of joint assessment being rollout from tomorrow morning.
State Response The search and rescue operations are ongoing with the National Disaster Response Force (80 teams deployed), Army, Navy, Indian Coast Guard, and state forces being mobilized across the affected states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. Six rescue and relief teams of the Army have been activated for rescue and relief operations in Diu. Six additional teams have also been staged forward to Junagarh to deal with after-effects of the cyclone at other cyclone-hit places including Botad, Amreli and Bhavnagar. A total of 180 teams and nine engineer task forces are also deployed for assessment and restoration of various services. The Indian Coast Guard is responding to distress calls by vessels in the Arabian Sea who have been stranded. Restoration of power and water supply and road clearance activities are underway in both states.
UNICEF Humanitarian Strategy UNICEF aims to support the provision of life-saving interventions for cyclone affected women and children through support to delivery of essential services by line-departments (mainstream service delivery mechanisms). UNICEF partners will provide on-ground implementation support to mobilise the most vulnerable to utilize the Government-UNICEF services, seek feedback from women, men, girls and boys, and monitor results. The response strategy aims to reduce the burden on the already over-stressed system that is responding to the COVID-19 crisis and reduce exposure of cyclone affected women and children to COVID risk. To enable this, UNICEF is leveraging its partnership with the Inter-Agency Group (IAG) of Gujarat and the Disaster Risk Management System of the Government of Gujarat. Partnership with the IAG will help UNICEF leverage time, efforts, skills and reach of the civil society organizations for joint rapid needs and vulnerability assessment and humanitarian response to address gaps in critical responses, whereas technical assistance to Government of Gujarat will enable coordination of life saving assistance and coordinated action for early recovery of social sectors (WASH, Health, Child Protection etc.). UNICEF will support line-departments to ensure COVID sensitive sectoral response planning to addresses humanitarian needs in child protection, health, nutrition Social Protection and WASH.
UNICEF Actions • UNICEF will support Gujarat-IAG to conduct a Joint Rapid Needs and Vulnerability Assessment in the cyclone affected districts followed by on-ground humanitarian response to address the acute needs of the most vulnerable women and children. • For Gujarat response, UNICEF is developing a multisectoral response plan (Health, WASH, Child Protection) to support the Government-led response. This is expected to include: o State level technical assistance to Government of Gujarat to strengthen coordination between state GSDMA, DDMAs, state IAG and CSO partners to enable coordinated action across levels, social sectors and Non-Government stakeholders. o District level technical assistance to affected districts (Gir Somnath, Junagarh and Porbandar) at DDMA level for information management, rapid response planning to enable local, coordinated action between social sector line-departments, CSOs and CSR partners, and monitor the situation of children and most vulnerable and related reporting on response, and early recovery planning. o Advocacy and technical support to social sector line-departments for COVID-sensitive response • In Maharashtra, one UNICEF consultant is stationed at the State Emergency Operation to provide information management support to the emergency response operation of the Government of Maharashtra. IAG Gujarat (CSO coordination mechanism supported by UNICEF): Gujarat IAG has mapped available resources such as field staffs, volunteers and pre-positioned relief items and has started coordinating CSO response by developing a 3W matrix. UNICEF, state IAG and Sphere India jointly planned a Joint Rapid Needs Assessment from tomorrow onwards. The rapid assessment is proposed to cover six of the most affected districts that includes Gir Somnath, Bhavnagar, Amreli, Botad, Junagarh and Anand. A total of 100 villages will be assessed at household and village level.
Funding and Partnerships Funding requirements remain unclear until the needs assessment has been completed. The Interagency Group of Gujarat and Sphere India at national level are prominent partners in the UNICEF India response strategy. UNICEF and Government of Gujarat have a long-standing partnership including an ongoing COVID-19 response.
Source of information: • Government bulletins, Circulars from respective line departments • Information from IAG and partner NGOs • Media For more information, please contact:
Tom White Richard Beighton Zafrin Chowdhury Chief, Emergency Chief, Resource Chief, Communication, (DRR) Mobilization Advocacy and Partnerships UNICEF India and Partnerships UNICEF India Email: [email protected] UNICEF India Tel: +91 98181 05922 Tel: +91 11 2469 0401 Email: Email: [email protected] [email protected]
Annex: Below mentioned is the information on warnings from 16th May to 20th May 2021 across 33 districts in Gujarat and Union Territories.