Tauktae shows no mercy on Gujarat

Ahmedabad/ Mumbai: At least seven persons were killed in Gujarat as cyclone 'Tauktae' battered parts of the state and left behind a trail of destruction, while the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard have so far rescued 317 people on board two barges that went adrift in the Arabian Sea near Mumbai, officials said on Tuesday.

Gujarat, where the cyclonic storm made a landfall on late Monday night before weakening, bore the brunt of the weather system which caused heavy rains, uprooted electric poles and trees, and damaged several houses and roads.

Tauktae crossed the Gujarat coast as an "extremely severe cyclonic storm" around midnight and gradually weakened into a "severe cyclonic storm," before further weakening to a "cyclonic storm" now, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

Over 16,000 houses were damaged, and more than 40,000 trees and over 1,000 poles uprooted due to the cyclonic storm in Gujarat, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said. As many as 35 Gujart talukas received more than one inch of rainfall.

Also, 159 roads were damaged and 196 remained blocked due to different reasons, Rupani said, adding 45 of the roads were cleared for traffic so far. There was a power outage in 2,437 villages and the supply has been restored in 484 villages till now, the CM said.

Heavy showers left many areas of Ahmedabad city inundated with knee-deep water during the day. The city received a staggering 75.69 mm of rain between 6 am and 4 pm. An official of the State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC) confirmed three fatalities due to the cyclone, one each from Rajkot, Valsad and Bhavnagar.

As of late Tuesday afternoon, the cyclonic storm lay centred over Saurashtra, around 75 km south-southwest of Ahmedabad and 40 km west of Surendranagar, and 190 km of Deesa, with the wind intensity now reduced to 70-80 kmph gusting to 90 kmph, the IMD said.

IMD (Ahmedabad) chief Manorama Mohanty told reporters the cyclonic storm is likely to prevail with a wind speed of 45-55 kmph gusting to 65 kmph. Districtssuch as Amreli, Bhavnagar, Navsari, Valsad, and Sabarkantha among others in Gujarat, and the Union Territory of Daman and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Sabarkantha arelikely to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall, she said.