Cyclone Dana begins landfall in Odisha, likely to continue till Friday morning

NEW DELHI: The severe cyclonic storm 'Dana' began its landfall on the Odisha coast late on Thursday night, with the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) expecting it to continue until Friday morning.

The coastal districts of Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Balasore, and nearby Jagatsinghpur experienced a sudden increase in wind speed, reaching 100-110 kmph, along with extremely heavy rainfall. Although reports of uprooted trees were received by the Special Relief Commissioner's office, there were no reports of major damage or casualties so far.

The storm moved north-northwest at a speed of 15 kmph over the past six hours before making landfall between Bhitarkanika in Kendrapara district and Dhamra in Bhadrak, with wind speeds of around 110 kmph. "The landfall process has commenced and the forward sector of the wall cloud region is entering into the land. The process will continue till Friday morning," Umashankar Das, a senior scientist at the Regional Meteorological Centre in Bhubaneswar, was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

Odisha chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi said earlier in the day that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah had inquired about the state government's preparedness to handle the situation arising from the cyclone. The state has already evacuated approximately 5.84 lakh people from high-risk zones located in the low-lying areas of coastal districts.

The IMD has forecasted light-to-moderate rainfall in most places and heavy-to-very heavy rainfall at a few places, with extremely heavy rainfall (above 21 cm) at isolated places in Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Bhadrak, Kendrapada, Jagatsingpur, Keonjhar, Jajpur, Cuttack, Dhenkanal, Khurda, and Puri districts until October 25.