THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Drawing lessons from Ockhi and Gaja cyclones, Kerala has begun preparing for the cyclonic storm expected to hit the southern Tamil Nadu coast on Wednesday. Though the path of the storm is yet to be officially forecast, scientists with the India Meteorological Department expect it to make landfall over the Rameswaram coast.
A well-marked low-pressure area — with associated cyclonic circulation — has formed over southeast Bay of Bengal and the areas adjoining the South Andaman Sea and the Equatorial Indian Ocean. It is likely to concentrate into a depression by Monday, scientists said. “It can’t be predicted if the depression would develop further into a cyclone. However, the models suggest it would develop into a cyclone and is likely to take a path along the Rameswaram coast in south Tamil Nadu,” a senior scientist said.
Meanwhile, K Santhosh, the director of the IMD centre in Thiruvananthapuram, said the exact path of the weather system can be forecast only by Monday. “But it’s most likely to reach the south Tamil Nadu coast by Wednesday. Anticipating a cyclone, we have alerted the government agencies in Kerala to take necessary action to lessen the impact of the weather system,” he said.
The State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) has directed all the district collectors to convene meetings of their respective District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA). They will keep close tabs on developments and keep relief camps ready from Ernakulam to Thiruvananthapuram. While the coastal and hilly areas of the state are expected to bear the brunt of such a storm, a senior SDMA official said the current weather models do not indicate that the cyclone will pass over the state.
“However, the coastal areas and hill stations, especially Idukki, in the southern half of the state will experience strong, gusty wind and heavy rain,” he said. The state had witnessed Ockhi in 2017 and Gaja in 2018. Though Ockhi took the lives of several fishermen along the Kerala coast, Gaja had weakened when it passed over the state. As per the IMD archives, the state had witnessed back-to-back cyclones in November-December 1912 and another one in November 1925. Between 1925 and 2016, the state was almost free from cyclones.
The predicted path of the storm rekindles memories of a cyclone that swept Dhanushkodi town in Tamil Nadu with an estimated velocity of 280 km per hour on the night intervening December 22 and 23 in 1964, killing around 1,800 people — including 115 people travelling by the Pamban-Dhanushkodi passenger train.