Cyclone Dana updates: Storm completes landfall in Odisha; flight operations resume

Coastal Odisha was hit by strong winds and heavy rainfall as Cyclone Dana made landfall between Bhitarkanika National Park and Dhamra after midnight on Thursday, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

Cyclone Dana made landfall around 12:10 am between Bhitarkanika in Kendrapara district and Dhamra in Bhadrak district. Manorama Mohanty, regional director of IMD Bhubaneswar, said that the landfall process would continue until Friday morning, after which the cyclone would weaken and recurve towards Dhenkanal and Angul districts instead of Keonjhar.

When the cyclone’s centre reaches land, wind speeds are expected to increase to 120 kmph, with the landfall process likely to last four to five hours. The system is being closely monitored by the Doppler weather radar at Paradip.

Odisha chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi said that both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah had inquired about the state’s preparedness to handle the cyclone’s impact. Majhi added that approximately 5.84 lakh people had been evacuated from high-risk, low-lying zones in coastal areas.

The Odisha government initially planned to evacuate one million people. However, officials revised this estimate after realizing that Cyclone Dana would be much weaker than originally feared.

The IMD has also said that scattered heavy to very heavy rainfall (7 to 20 cm), with isolated extremely heavy rainfall (over 20 cm), is likely in the districts of Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapada, Cuttack, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Balasore, and Mayurbhanj.

From Friday morning to Saturday morning, similar conditions are expected in isolated areas of Jajpur, Bhadrak, Puri, Dhenkanal, Khordha, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapada, and Angul, according to an IMD official.