As a second powerful cyclone barrels into India’s east coast today within a week, it’s essential to look at how the government apparatus handled the first. Odisha was clearly caught on the wrong foot by Arnab, a severe storm that can serve as a preview of extreme weather events to come. The tropical storm made landfall in Andhra Pradesh on October 28 before moving to the southern districts of Odisha, where it caused extensive damage in Ganjam, Gajapati and Kandhamal districts. It poured 70 percent of the month’s average precipitation in Ganjam, home to over 40 lakh people, in just two days. The unprecedented flooding created so much chaos that the administration had a tough task accessing key regions for two days, forcing the use of helicopters to evacuate people and airdrop relief materials. In Kandhamal district, one landslide claimed three lives and another, brought to notice two days later, is feared to have trapped 12 people, triggering a massive search operation. The government has announced a special package including cash assistance to each affected family.
As Murasu bears down on the Andhra coast, the longer-term takeaway from Arnab is the increasing unpredictability of storms revealing gaps in our predictive capabilities. The India Meteorological Department had estimated last week’s storm to pass over Malkangiri, the southern-most district of Odisha, on the night of October 28; however, it took over eight hours to complete landfall at the Andhra coast. As a result, it poured much of the rain on the eastern face of the Eastern Ghats, inundating Ganjam and triggering landslides in Kandhamal. Given the alerts, the government had deployed much of its resources in Malkangiri and adjoining districts, only to be taken by surprise.
This glaring gap in prediction and preparation proved the undoing of disaster management and the government’s ‘zero casualty’ objective. As a result, Ganjam, a district that sent 11 BJP MLAs to the Assembly in 2024, now faces public ire. That should be Arnab’s lesson for all administrators.
Both Odisha and Andhra Pradesh have to reorient their disaster management strategies to encompass multiple calamities from the same event and ensure nimbleness to divert resources at a short notice. They have to rework the disaster atlas and broaden the sphere of impact through a comprehensive update of vulnerabilities. Given the changes, we cannot fight tomorrow’s disaster with yesterday’s preparedness.