Cyclone Burevi will likely hit Thiruvananthapuram tomorrow: District Collector

Thiruvananthapuram: National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) is well prepared ahead of Cyclone Burevi striking the coasts of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Odisha tomorrow, the NDRF officials said here on Wednesday.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) tweeted, "The cyclonic storm `Burevi` over Southwest Bay of Bengal moved west-northwestwards with a speed of 18 kmph during past six hours and lay centered at 0830 hours IST of today, the 2nd December, 2020 over Southwest Bay of Bengal near Lat. 8.6°N and Long. 83.0°E, about 200 km east of Trincomalee (Sri Lanka), 420 km east-southeast of Pamban (India) and 600 km nearly east-northeast of Kanyakumari (India). It is very likely to intensify further during the next 12 hours."

"It would then move nearly west-southwestwards very close to coast slowly and cross south Tamil Nadu coast between Kanniyakumari and Pamban during 3rd December night and 4th December early morning as a Cyclonic Storm with a wind speed of 70-80 kmph gusting to 90 kmph", the tweet added."Two teams of NDRF are deployed at Thoothukudi, in view of Cyclone Burevi. Burevi is expected to cross South Tamil Nadu between Kanniyakumari and Pamban on the morning of December 4," as per IMD.NDRF teams were also deployed in Kerala`s Thiruvananthapuram and Tamil Nadu`s Kanniyakumari.

"Cyclone Burevi will likely hit Thiruvananthapuram district tomorrow. We`ve asked fishermen to return and have completely banned fishing and regulated movement in hilly areas. We are expecting very high rainfall with wind speeds of 75- 80 kmph," said Navjot Khosa, District Collector, Thiruvananthapuram."Yesterday, we had a special District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) meeting with defence forces that are stationed here. Unit heads of these forces attended the meeting and we planned rescue, relief and search operation strategies, if the need should arise," Khosa added."Cyclone Burevi will be over 1,300 km away from Odisha. So, there will be no direct impact here. We have not issued any warnings across the districts. The next five days will see dry weather prevail over the state," the IMD of Odisha said.