Cyclone Biparjoy approaches: Gujarat evacuates thousands, shuts schools, ports; PM holds meet in Delhi

In Rajkot, Varsha Bavaliya, a resident of Chhasiya village, was killed and husband Bhavesh was seriously injured after a tree fell on them while they were heading to Bhadla village on a motorbike. “A peepal tree fell on them due to gusty winds. The injured were rushed to the civil hospital in Rajkot where the woman was declared brought dead,” an official said. This is the first death caused by weather conditions stemming from the cyclone.

According to the IMD, heavy rain is expected in the coastal districts of Gujarat — extremely heavy rainfall in Kutch, Devbhumi Dwarka and Jamnagar and heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places in Porbandar, Rajkot, Morbi and Junagarh — on Wednesday and Thursday.

Multiple ports were also shut down, including Kandla, the country’s largest public sector port. An official there said 15 ships that were in the port area have now sailed off, along with those that had been waiting to berth. The ports at Okha, Porbandar, Salaya, Bedi, Navlakhi, Mandvi and Jakhau have also been shut.

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard deployed a helicopter to evacuate workers on an oil exploration rig, Key Singapore, around 20 nautical miles off the Okha coast in Devbhumi Dwarka. “The private company had kept their staff on board the rig at the bare minimum following the cyclone warning. However, given the intensity of Biparjoy, the company decided to evacuate more staff members and requested the government help. By 6 pm Monday, the Indian Coast Guard helicopter had made three sorties and airlifted a total of 17 workers,” Devbhumi Dwarka Collector Ashok Sharma said. “The company has engaged a private firm providing air services for ferrying its staff from the shores to the offshore rig but that firm declined to evacuate the staff on Monday citing rough weather.”

Sharma also said around 2,500 people were evacuated from vulnerable areas and the process will continue on Tuesday as well. “We have also shifted 138 pregnant women to nearby hospitals and community health centres as a precautionary measure and around 20 of them have had safe deliveries,” added the collector.

In Kutch, the district administration started evacuating fishermen and salt-pan workers from the sea coast. “We have ordered salt companies to move the salt-pan workers working in their salt pans to safer places. Likewise, we have also asked fishermen to shift to safer places and we are providing them vehicles wherever needed,” Mitesh Pandya, resident additional collector of Kutch said. “We have identified some 16,000 people who live in vulnerable areas up to 10 kilometres inland and we shall start evacuating them to temporary cyclone shelters from Tuesday onwards.”

Meanwhile, gusty winds flattened 353 electrical poles in the Saurashtra and Kutch regions, disrupting power supply to 161 villages. The power distribution company serving these regions said that 43 feeders supplying powers to residents in villages and 522 feeders supplying powers to farmers had failed due to inclement weather.