Tripura sees heavy rainfall amid ‘orange alert’ as depression moves north-northeast

Apart from Tripura, other northeastern states, including Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, are likely to get heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places from May 26 to 28, the IMD said.

In a statement, the IMD said extremely heavy rainfall is likely to occur in Assam and Meghalaya on May 27 and 28 followed by Tripura and Mizoram on May 27 and Arunachal Pradesh on May 28.

As per the IMD prediction, the depression would continue to move northeastwards and turn into a cyclonic storm over east-central Bay of Bengal. The cyclonic storm is likely to cross Bangladesh and adjoining West Bengal coasts between Sagar Island and Khepupara on the midnight of Sunday with wind speed of 110-120 kmph, gusting to 130 kmph.

The IMD had earlier served a yellow alert for Tripura on Saturday and had said thunderstorms with lightning and gusty wind speed reaching 30-40 kmph is likely in all districts.

While the gusty thunderstorms have already shown up at Agartala, Amtali and a few other places in West Tripura district, officials at the State Emergency Operations Centre (SEOC) said reports of rainfall and gusty winds are coming in from different parts of the state.

The IMD has also issued an ‘orange alert’ with prediction of thunderstorms with lightning and gusty wind with speed of 40-50 kmph on Sunday along with heavy-to-very-heavy rainfall at isolated places over South, Gomati, Dhalai, Sepahijala and West districts. It has also issued a yellow alert for the rest of the districts.

Tripura has an orange alert on May 27 and 28 as thunderstorm with lightning and squally wind speed of 50-60 kmph gusting to 70 kmph with heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely to occur at isolated places of South, Dhalai, Sepahijala, Gomati and West districts while on the subsequent day (May 28), thunderstorm with lightning and gusty wind speed of 30-40 kmph and heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places of North, Unakoti and Dhalai districts is likely, the IMD said.