West Bengal Chief minister Mamata Banerjee said on Monday that around 20 districts, including those in north Bengal, would be affected. The worst affected would be the coastal districts of East Midnapore, South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas.
Around a million people are likely to be evacuated and taken to cyclone shelters in West Bengal before very severe cyclone Yaas hits the West Bengal-Odisha coast on Wednesday noon.
“Evacuation process has already started and we plan to evacuate around a million people before the cyclone hits on Wednesday noon,” said a senior official of the state government.
On Monday, the administration started moving people living on some of the remote islands in the Sunderban delta and on islands, such as Ghoramara, located close to the confluence of the River Ganges and the Bay of Bengal.
“The sea and the river get very rough as a cyclone approaches and hence people living on Ghoramara Island had to be evacuated on Monday,” said a senior official of the South 24 Parganas district administration.
In the early hours of Tuesday, the cyclone was located around 450 km south-east of the West Bengal coast.
“From a cyclone, Yaas has already intensified into a severe cyclone. It is likely to intensify further into a very severe cyclone and is expected to hit the land somewhere around Balasore in Odisha on Wednesday noon,” said a senior official of the Indian Meteorological Department’s regional office in Kolkata.