After days of anxiety and worry, Cyclone Biparjoy – packed with high wind speeds – struck the Jakhau port in Gujarat on Thursday evening, causing damage and destruction along the state’s coastline.
Cyclone Biparjoy, which translates to disaster in English, lived up to its name – killing two people, injuring at least another 22, uprooting a large number of trees and snapping supply of power to several villages. In fact, according to experts, Cyclone Biparjoy is one of the worst cyclones in recorded history.
After wreaking havoc on the Gujarat coastline, the intensity of Cyclone Biparjoy reduced on Friday morning, and is likely to weaken into a depression this evening over Rajasthan. Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot said that his state was geared up for the cyclone and the heavy rainfall that will come with it. According to the India Meteorological Department (Met), heavy rainfall is likely to occur in Jodhpur and Udaipur divisions on Friday and Saturday due to the cyclone.
Trail of destruction
On Thursday, around 6.30 pm, Cyclone Biparjoy with wind speeds of 115-125 kilometres per hour made landfall at Gujarat’s Jakhau port after travelling in the Arabian Sea for 10 days.
As the storm struck, it brought total darkness to several parts of Gujarat as electric poles across the state were brought down. Officials were quoted as saying that at least 940 villages in the western state had been plunged into blackness with the entire town of Mandvi in the dark.
The cyclone also led to the deaths of two people. According to an Indian Express report, a shepherd and his son – Ram Parmar and Rajesh – died after they were swept away in a flooded stream while trying to save their herd of sheep from drowning in Sodvadar village, on the outskirts of Bhavnagar city, on Thursday evening. The district flood control room of Bhavnagar said that it received the information about the missing father-son duo at 6:25pm. A search and rescue mission was launched, and the bodies were later fished out.
Also read: A look at the deadliest cyclones that have hit India
Furthermore, Cyclone Biparjoy caused injury to around 22 people in the state. Alok Pandey, Relief Commissioner of Gujarat, was quoted as saying that the cyclone had also caused the death of 23 animals. However, the wildlife in Gir National Park went unscathed.
In the Kutch district, roads had been blocked after trees were uprooted and electricity poles came crashing down. Similar scenes were prevalent in Jakhau too. At some places, the roofs of houses had blown away owing to the strong winds.
The storm also brought fear to the people of Gujarat with Juma Koli, a worker at the salt pans in Jakhau telling Indian Express, “Whether we are afraid of the cyclone or not, where else can we go. We’ll stay indoors and try to weather the storm.”
Forewarning helped
As the cyclone travelled in the Arabian Sea for 10 days, officials in Gujarat had enough time to prep for it and to mitigate the destruction. Gujarat state officials said that 94,000 people had been evacuated from coastal areas.
Additionally, several train services were suspended in Gujarat, while the ports of Kandla and Mundra – two of India’s largest –stopped operations. Fishing was also suspended along the Gujarat coast.
An India Today report also stated that 76 Multipurpose Cyclone Shelters (MPCS) had been set to house people who had been evacuated on account of the cyclone. This includes 25 shelters in Junagadh, 29 at Gir-Somnath, four each in Porbandar, Devbhoomi Dwarka, and Kutch, two in Amreli, one each in Jamnagar and Navsari, five in Bharuch, and one in Ahmedabad.
Also, 1,512 shelter homes have been built across Gujarat, which includes 196 in Junagadh, 173 in Kutch, 56 in Jamnagar, 140 in Porbandar, 182 in Devbhoomi Dwarka, 507 in Gir-Somnath, 31 in Morbi, and 236 in Rajkot.
Eighteen teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), 12 of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), 115 teams of state road and building department, and 397 of the state electricity department have also been deployed in coastal districts.
The cyclone on Thursday evoked strong memories in the minds of the people in Gujarat who saw horrific destruction owing to a cyclone 25 years ago. In June of 1998, a ‘very severe cyclonic storm’ had crossed the Gujarat coast near Porbandar with an intensity of 167 km per hour, killing 1,173 people and another 1,774 people reported missing. Some say that these numbers didn’t reflect the reality of the moment and over 4,000 people had died in that cyclone.
Blame global warming
According to many experts, Cyclone Biparjoy was more intense owing to ‘global warming’ factor. As per IMD, Biparjoy intensified twice in its lifetime because of the unusually warm waters of the Arabian Sea due to global warming.
A study by Pune’s Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) has recorded that the number of cyclones has increased by 52 per cent and incidents of very severe cyclones went up by 150 per cent. The rise in sea-water temperatures increases humidity due to evaporation, which lends energy to cyclones to intensify.
A report prepared by the Gujarat Institute of Disaster Management (GIDM) in Rysan, Gujarat, concedes that the Arabian Sea was earlier considered less prone to cyclonic conditions as compared to the Bay of Bengal as the sea temperatures were lower there. However, the GIDM report quotes a UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2019, which suggests that “the Arabian Sea is quickly responding to climate change signals and the frequency of severe cyclone has registered a threefold increase in recent times”. The report adds that “the intensity of tropical cyclones in the region is reaching its extreme”.
With inputs from agencies
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