India Meteorological Department scaled up its weather warning for Mumbai on Monday. Apart from ringing a red alert for Mumbai, IMD also raised a red alert for Thane, Palghar and Raigad for Wednesday. There is a red alert for Palghar alone on Thursday as well.
A slow pressure area formed over southeast and adjoining eastcentral Arabian Sea early morning and persisted till forenoon. It intensified into a depression, moved north-northwestwards and lay centred there, 630km south-southwest of Mumbai in the Arabian Sea, on Monday. It is very likely to intensify into a Deep Depression by Monday evening and intensify further into a cyclonic storm- Cyclone Nisarga- on Tuesday.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a video conference with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray regarding cyclone Nisarga yesterday.
Mr Shah assured that disaster response teams from neighbouring states have been kept on alert and will be sent to Maharashtra if needed.
Whereas in Gujarat, in the wake of cyclone arriving the Gujarat government on Monday ordered evacuation of people living in low-lying areas and deployed 10 teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) in over half a dozen districts.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the low-pressure area formed over the Arabian Sea has intensified into a depression and it will further intensify into a cyclonic storm in the next 36 hours.
“The (low-pressure) system is around 900km away from Surat at present. We expect the cyclonic storm to hit the southern Gujarat coast near Daman on June 3 evening with a wind speed of 90 to 100 km per hour.
“It will bring heavy rainfall in the south Gujarat region on June 3 and 4. It may have some impact in Bhavnagar and Amreli districts of the Saurashtra region as well,” said Director of MET Centre, Jayanta Sarkar.
In view of the cyclonic activity over the Arabian Sea, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Monday chaired a high-level meet in Gandhinagar to assess the preparedness of the state machinery to tackle all eventualities.
After the meeting was concluded, Mr. Rupani said 10 teams of the NDRF have already taken position in five districts of south Gujarat and Bhavnagar and Amreli districts of Saurashtra to deal with any situation arising out of the cyclone.
These five districts of south Gujarat are Surat, Bharuch, Navsari, Valsad and Dang.
