Gujarat shifts 37,000 to shelters as Biparjoy nears, 1 dies in wall collapse

In all, DPA, the autonomous body functioning under the Union Ministry of Ports, Shipping, Waterways and that owns and operates Kandla — the country’s largest public sector port — has evacuated 2,200 people from the port with the help of the local police.

By Tuesday evening, over 37,700 people had been evacuated from the eight coastal districts that are likely to be affected the most, and the Army had been kept on standby. Meanwhile, one person was killed after a wall collapsed in the Kharvavad area of Porbandar town due to the high-velocity winds Tuesday. On Monday, two children were killed in a similar incident in Bhuj, the district headquarters of Kutch. With this, the number of cyclone-related deaths has gone up to four.

With a middle-aged man to his right and a young boy to his left, Mandaviya told the evacuees in Gujarati: “Modiji has given instructions from Delhi that no one should get injured and that no one’s household belongings should be destroyed. Did you face any difficulty? If a bus of DPA comes to your locality and they ask you to board it, you should do that. There is a lot of space here. See those chairs (as he pointed to bucket chairs in the indoor stadium). We will allow you to go back day after tomorrow when there is no danger).”

Mandaviya, who landed in Kutch early on Tuesday morning, spent more than half an hour among the people who were evacuated from their huts and kutcha houses Monday as Cyclone Biparjoy continued to approach the Kutch coast, bringing with it gusty winds and rains. It is expected to make a landfall on Thursday.

DPA has housed the evacuees in three temporary cyclone shelters — SVP Hall, Staff Club and Kendriya Vidyalaya — in Gopalpur, a residential colony in Gandhidham town.

An official release said that by Tuesday evening, the district administration was to evacuate a total of 14,088 people living in huts and kutcha houses upto five kilometres inland and that if needed, 7278 more people living upto 10 kms inland would be evacuated to safer places. The evacuation is being done from 122 coastal villages of Kutch and by 5 pm Monday, 11,000 people had already been shifted to cyclone shelters.

According to a government release, Chief Secretary Raj Kumar informed the CM that till Tuesday evening 37,794 people, including 6,229 salt pan workers, were evacuated to safety from the eight districts of Kutch, Porbandar, Junagadh, Jamnagar, Devbhumi-Dwarka, Gir-Somnath, Morbi and Rajkot.

The cyclone has “extensive damaging potential” and is likely to impact Kutch, Devbhumi Dwarka and Jamnagar districts the most, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

As of 8:30 pm on Tuesday, the Met department stated that Biparjoy, the “very severe cyclonic storm”, is laid 280 west-southwest of Devbhumi Dwarka coast, 300 km from Porbandar and 310 km from Jakhau port in Kutch district. The IMD has issued an orange alert for Saurashtra-Kutch coast, predicting the cyclone will make landfall near Jakhau on the evening of June 15 with a sustained wind speed of 125-135 kilometres per hour (kmph) gusting to 150 kmph.

The cyclone would cause light to moderate rainfall in most places with heavy to very heavy rainfall and extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places in Kutch, Devbhumi Dwarka, Porbandar, Jamnagar, Rajkot, Junagadh and Morbi districts on Wednesday, the IMD warned. This intensity of rain would increase with heavy to very heavy rainfall in these districts on Thursday when Biparjoy is expected to make a landfall near Kutch.

The IMD has warned of damage extending to “total destruction of thatched houses, extensive damage to kutcha houses, some damage to pucca houses” in the affected districts at the time of the landfall. It has also warned of major damage to kutcha and pucca roads, “disruption of railways, overhead power lines, and signalling systems”.

Rains and gusty winds caused power outages in 563 villages in Saurashtra and Kutch regions as 778 electric poles were damaged. A total of 1,587 power feeders, including 129 feeders supplying power to villages, nine to urban areas and 1,433 to farmers developed fault, power distribution company Paschim Gujarat Vij Company Limited said in a release.

As a precautionary measure, the government has shut down schools till June 15. All sea ports in the Gulf of Kutch, including Kandla and Jakhau ports have also been shut down. The Western Railway has cancelled 67 trains and short-terminated or short-originated 43 others passing through the cyclone-affected six coastal districts of Gujarat.

The Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation has also cancelled many routes in view of the cyclone and Union Minister Mandaviya said that the forest department is trimming large trees in an effort to save them from being uprooted by cyclonic winds. Two teams each of NDRF and SDRF have been deployed. Mandaviya said the Army, the Indian Air Force, the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard are also geared up to join any rescue and relief work. He also visited the Military Station in Bhuj in the morning to review the preparedness of the Army to tackle situations likely to arise out of the cyclone.

Fishing activities have been suspended till June 16, ports are shut and ships are anchored as the sea turned very rough and weather became inclement with extremely heavy rainfall and strong wind in the region due to the approaching cyclone.

Inside one of the camps, the air was sultry with many trying to get some sleep among bundles of their household belongings. But Jusab Nighamara, who was ordered to come out of the cabin of the crane he was operating onboard a ship loaded with Australian wood at 2 am on Monday, has no complaints. “The vessel had berthed on June 8 and we had unloaded 60,000 of 1.35 lakh logs imported from Australia when DPA asked us to stop unloading and take the vessel outside the port,” he said, adding, “While we had to cease operations abruptly, it is good that DPA remained proactive this time. In 1998, no one had any inkling, till gally winds swept the port before massive tidal waves submerged our home. We could barely manage to (reach) a building in KPT labour colony and survived that deadly cyclone.”

“Bahu je saru chhe, saheb. Ame 1998 vavajodu joyu chhe ane tena karta to aa bahu saru chhe (This place is very good, sir. We have survived the 1998 cyclone and in that sense, this a very good place),” Jusab Nighamara (40), a crane operator with a private firm in Kandla and a resident of Sarva Zupda in the port, said while replying to Mandaviya.

However, the family of Gani Jam, who used to live in Railway Zupda area was not that lucky in 1998. His mother Hawabai, maternal grandmother Ayesha and his one-year-old son Hasan were killed as they were swept away by the tidal waves. “A tidal wave flooded our home. The second wave, which looked as tall as a hill, snatched my infant son from my arms. Somehow, I managed to climb to the top of our wooden home and survived,” Fatema, Gani’s wife recalls, while seeking shelter at the residence of her brother Jusab Mandhra in Gandhidham on Tuesday.

The couple’s second son, Akram, got married to Mandhra’s daughter Sakina on May 28 and they, too, have been camping at the Mandhras since Monday. “Sakina brought around three lakh worth of gifts with her. But we left them back in Kandla. Experience tells me that one can purchase material things after losing some. But a life lost is a loss forever,” Gani, a casual labourer in Kandla port, says. “I can’t forget my struggle to reach my home from the dock after the 1998 cyclone hit Kandla and the scene of my brother-in-law meeting me halfway, holding the body of my infant son in hand, surrounded by waters all around.”

Talking to The Indian Express, Mandaviya said that people have cooperated with the administration this time. “Cyclones hit more frequently the east coast of the country and therefore, people there have learnt how to survive them. In Gujarat, people used to resist when the government would ask them to evacuate their houses in vulnerable areas. But this time around, things seem to have changed and people have been cooperating a great deal. Around 8,000 people living up to five kilometres inland were evacuated on Monday and more people are being evacuated today. I am happy to report that there has been no resistance,” the Union Minister said.

A statement from the army said, flood relief columns had been rehearsed and kept ready at Bhuj, Jamnagar, Gandhidham, Dharangdhra, Vadodara and Gandhinagar as well as at forward locations at Naliya, Dwarka and Amreli.

“The Army authorities have also jointly planned the relief operations with civil administration as well as NDRF. The interaction has given all agencies involved in Disaster Management a platform to share their best practices and gain from each other.

The resources have also been made available from neighbouring Rajasthan as well to ensure minimization of any loss due to the gusty winds and heavy rainfall”, the statement said.

Mandaviya also visited the Kandla port, which was shut down Monday morning, and held a meeting with the DPA officers. “Shutting down Kandla, the country’s biggest port, is not an easy decision and it would take eight to 10 days to normalise operations once the cyclone passes over. But our approach is zero casualty and minimum damage to property. Therefore, we had to take this decision,” Mandaviya told mediapersons on the dry cargo jetty of Kandla port.

The 1998 cyclone, too, had hit in June. “But no one had any inkling till the cyclone actually hit. I left my home to work on the jetty at 8 am. The wind picked up speed at around 9 am. Worried about my family, I left for my home which was two kilometres away. But flying steel sheets of roofs of godowns make the walk dangerous. Therefore, I boarded a truck loaded with wheat. But after some distance, the truck started swaying from the course due to squally winds. I couldn’t make it to my home to save my son, mother and grandmother,” Gani rues.

The government said 17 teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and 12 of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) are on standby in affected districts of Devbhumi Dwarka, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Junagadh, Porbandar, Gir Somnath, Morbi and Valsad.

(with inputs from ENS Ahmedabad)