VISAKHAPATNAM: Vizagites can heave a sigh of relief as the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) officials on Thursday said that the cyclonic storm ‘Kyant’ had weakened into a deep depression and it would bring only rain to a few places over Coastal Andhra Pradesh.
“The Kyant has weakened into a deep depression. Having moved further west southwest-wards, it is now lay centred over west-central Bay of Bengal near latitude 15.5 degrees north and longitude 85.0 degrees east, 310 km south-east off Visakhapatnam coast and 420 km east off Machilipatnam and 550 km east-north-east of Nellore,” the IMD officials said.
The depression is most likely to move west-south-west-wards and weaken further into a depression before moving towards south coastal AP or adjoining north Tamil Nadu coast.
“The deep depression may further weaken into a depression during the next 12 hours and light to moderate rainfall is expected at a few places of coastal AP followed by squally winds at a speed of 25-30 km per hr till October 30,” said the duty officer of the Cyclone Warning Centre (CWC), Vizag, adding that the sea condition, however, would be rough along the coast. Meanwhile, the officials have warned fishermen not to venture out into the sea for the next two days.
But, the citizens scurried for essentials items like milk, bread, egg, candle and vegetables on Thursday. People also made beeline for petrol pumps to fill the tanks of the vehicles and ATMs kiosks in the city were also crowded.
“We do not want to take any chance as we had seen the worst during Hudhud. It’s just a precautionary measure that we stored essentials and cash. Any alert about cyclones has become a wake-up call for Vizagites post-Hudhud,” said M Srinivas, a resident of Kirlampudi Layout.