Cyclone Fani: Indians shelter from cyclone's onslaught - BBC News

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A powerful cyclone has slammed into India's eastern coastline, bringing torrential rains and winds of up to 200 km/h (125mph).

Cyclone Fani, one of the most severe storms to hit the region in recent years, made landfall at 08:00 local time (02:30 GMT) on Friday.

More than one million people have been evacuated from the eastern state of Orissa, also called Odisha.

A state official said two people had been killed.

Flooding has also been reported in several areas, and forecasters say a storm surge of 1.5m (5ft) could threaten low-lying homes.

The cyclone made landfall in the tourist town of Puri, which is home to the 858-year-old Jagannath temple.

It is expected to hit 15 districts in Orissa, one of India's poorest states, before weakening on Saturday.

India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi said $140m (£106m) was being allocated for emergency relief.

What is the latest?

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Numerous flights and train services in and out of the state have been cancelled, while schools and government offices are shut. Operations at three ports on India's eastern coast have also been shut down.

Naval warships and helicopters are on standby with medical teams and relief materials. The country's National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has also deployed several teams there.

India's National Disaster Management Authority has warned people along the east coast, especially fishermen, not to go out to sea because the conditions are "phenomenal".

The agency said the "total destruction of thatched houses" was possible, as well as "extensive damage" to other structures.

"I can confirm two deaths for now," Orissa special relief commissioner Bishnupada Sethi told AFP news agency.

"[A] man in one of the shelters died because of a heart attack. Another person went out in the storm despite our warnings and died because a tree fell on him," he said.

The cyclone is expected to move towards Chittagong in Bangladesh in a weaker form on Saturday.

It coincides with high tides in the country, which may exacerbate potential flooding issues there.

The port city of Cox's Bazar, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees live in camps with minimal shelter, is also on alert. But the cyclone is currently not expected to hit the camps unless it changes path, which is not thought likely.

How has India prepared?

In February the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) began distributing tarpaulins ahead of the region's "cyclone season" - but warned that if a deadly storm rolls in, shelters made of battered bamboo and shredded plastic would offer little protection.

The navy, the coast guard and the National Disaster Response Force have all been prepared for deployment.

Two ships with divers and doctors have been stationed at the southern port cities of Vishakapatnam and Chennai (formerly Madras), an official told local media.

In 2017, Cyclone Ockhi killed more than 200 people and displaced hundreds. In October last year, officials in Orissa evacuated hundreds of thousands of people when another cyclone struck.

But India has improved its protections and responses to these disasters in recent years. The state's most deadly cyclone on record took place in 1999, killing almost 10,000 people.

India's electoral commission has relaxed its rules about what the government can do during election periods so that the authorities can carry out relief work.

The country is in the middle of a multi-phased election which started last month.

Under normal circumstances the incumbent government has certain powers suspended, so that it can't announce new schemes or take new decisions during the voting period.

Although the election will continue until the end of May, Orissa has already voted.

Are you in the region? What are conditions like at the moment? What preparations have you made? Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-48153413

2019-05-03 14:03:58Z
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British voters with Brexit on their minds punish main parties in local elections - The Washington Post

LONDON — British voters punished the country’s two main political parties in local elections, according to partial results on Friday, with anger over Brexit cited as the most likely reason. 

The governing Conservative Party looked set to lose the largest number of seats, with growing calls on the embattled prime minister, Theresa May, to resign. 

Speaking at the Welsh Conservative conference on Friday, May said that the results were “very difficult for our party,” and that they showed that voters wanted both main parties to “just get on and deliver Brexit.”

She was heckled by a Conservative activist who stood up and shouted, “Why don’t you resign?” adding, “We don’t want you.” He was booed out of the hall, and May replied to the crowd in Welsh with “Good afternoon.”

Three years after Britons voted to leave the European Union, the vexing issue of Brexit seemed to still be a dominant force at the ballot box. 

Local elections are usually contests over who can better organize the recycling bins and help out the shops on Main Street or sometimes even a protest vote against the governing party. But like all elections since the Brexit vote, these ones seemed to be something of a proxy vote on the 2016 E.U. referendum. 

An even bigger test looms with Britain’s European elections on May 23, where Britain faces the awkward prospect of electing politicians to institutions it’s trying to leave. 

Those results could be even more fragmented as two new political parties will be fielding candidates: Nigel Farage’s newly launched Brexit Party and a pro-E.U. party called Change UK.

The elections were held in many parts of England and Northern Ireland on Thursday, with results rolling in throughout the day on Friday. Not all councilors or districts are up for election every year. 

Politicians in both of the main parties were quick to point the finger at Brexit for their poor performance. Over 8,000 seats were up for grabs in the elections; the Conservative Party had held over 60 percent of them going into the elections. At the time of writing, the Conservative Party had lost over 700 seats and the opposition Labour Party had lost more than 80 with two-thirds of the results in.

[Brits pretend they’re sick of Brexit. But truth is they’re obsessed.]

The Liberal Democrats, a pro-E.U. centrist party, and other smaller and independent parties, looked set to be the big winners of the day. 

But as ever with Brexit, the vote was split, with some voters wanting it to hurry up and be over, while others didn’t want it to go ahead at all. 

John McDonnell, a senior figure in the Labour Party, tweeted on Friday morning: “We’ll see what final results of local elections look like by end of day as they are pretty mixed geographically up to now but so far message from local elections — ‘Brexit — sort it’. Message received.” 

Labour chairman Ian Lavery told the BBC that Brexit was “trumping” his party’s arguments against austerity. “People want to see Brexit over and done with,” he said. 

Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland and from the Scottish National Party, tweeted: “If the message Labour takes from English local elections is that they should now be the facilitator of a Tory Brexit, I suspect their troubles will just be beginning.”

May and the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are holding cross-party talks in hopes of finding a way through the Brexit impasse. 

Tony Travers, a politics professor at the London School of Economics, said that the election results as of Friday morning appeared to be showing “disenchantment with Conservatives and Labour because of the broader of mess of Brexit.” 

Read more:

Britain will not leave the E.U. next week after European leaders allow a short Brexit reprieve

Brexit: Parliament rejects soft Brexit, second referendum

Dump May? Approve her plan? Some scenarios for what might be next for Brexit Britain.

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

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2019-05-03 12:28:44Z
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In photos: Tropical Cyclone Fani makes landfall - CNN

Gusty winds lead to street shops collapsing ahead of Tropical Cyclone Fani's landfall on the outskirts of Puri in the Indian state of Odisha on Friday, May 3.

AP

Updated 1108 GMT (1908 HKT) May 3, 2019

Gusty winds lead to street shops collapsing ahead of Tropical Cyclone Fani's landfall on the outskirts of Puri in the Indian state of Odisha on Friday, May 3.

AP

Tropical Cyclone Fani made landfall Friday, May 3, near Puri, India, in Odisha state. The storm is the strongest tropical cyclone to hit India in 20 years.

Packing sustained winds of 240 kilometers per hour (150 miles per hour), the storm was the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

More than 1 million people were evacuated ahead of Fani, Odisha's chief minister said. About 10,000 villages and 52 towns in nine districts in the state were in the storm's path, forecasters said.

The storm is expected to weaken as it moves north-northeast toward Kolkata, one of India's most populous cities, and Bangladesh.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/03/asia/gallery/cyclone-fani/index.html

2019-05-03 11:08:32Z
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Live updates: Cyclone Fani makes landfall in Odisha - CNN

Disaster relief plans have been made for Rohingya refugee camps along the Bangladeshi border with Myanmar in case Tropical Cyclone Fani hits the vulnerable, low-lying areas, according to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

In a tweet, the UNHCR said it had almost 150 emergency response containers at refugee camps in the east of the country: "They hold family tents, sleeping mats, blankets, buckets, aqua tabs, plastic sheets, rope, and will ensure quicker response to save lives, if needed."

Key among the items are the emergency tents which can be "rapidly deployed" should families' makeshift shelters collapse in the strong winds.

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https://www.cnn.com/india/live-news/cyclone-fani-live-updates-wxc-intl/index.html

2019-05-03 09:53:00Z
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Live updates: Cyclone Fani makes landfall in Odisha - CNN

Disaster relief plans have been made for Rohingya refugee camps along the Bangladeshi border with Myanmar in case Tropical Cyclone Fani hits the vulnerable, low-lying areas, according to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

In a tweet, the UNHCR said it had almost 150 emergency response containers at refugee camps in the east of the country: "They hold family tents, sleeping mats, blankets, buckets, aqua tabs, plastic sheets, rope, and will ensure quicker response to save lives, if needed."

Key among the items are the emergency tents which can be "rapidly deployed" should families' makeshift shelters collapse in the strong winds.

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https://www.cnn.com/india/live-news/cyclone-fani-live-updates-wxc-intl/index.html

2019-05-03 09:11:00Z
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Live updates: Cyclone Fani makes landfall in Odisha - CNN

Disaster relief plans have been made for Rohingya refugee camps along the Bangladeshi border with Myanmar in case Tropical Cyclone Fani hits the vulnerable, low-lying areas, according to UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

In a tweet, the UNHCR said it had almost 150 emergency response containers at refugee camps in the east of the country: "They hold family tents, sleeping mats, blankets, buckets, aqua tabs, plastic sheets, rope, and will ensure quicker response to save lives, if needed."

Key among the items are the emergency tents which can be "rapidly deployed" should families' makeshift shelters collapse in the strong winds.

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https://www.cnn.com/india/live-news/cyclone-fani-live-updates-wxc-intl/index.html

2019-05-03 08:21:00Z
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Cyclone Fani Live Updates: Storm Makes Landfall in India - The New York Times

• Cyclone Fani, one of the strongest storms to batter the Indian subcontinent in decades, made landfall near Puri, India, around 8 a.m. on Friday, lashing the coast with winds gusting at more than 120 miles per hour.

• Tens of millions of people are potentially in the cyclone’s path, and more than a million were evacuated this week from coastal areas. Large sections of coastal India and Bangladesh are threatened by storm surges, and heavy rains could cause rivers to breach.

• The fast-moving storm struck the coast as the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane. Soon after it made landfall, meteorologists predicted it would be downgraded within hours to a “very severe” storm from an “extremely severe” storm.

Live Tracking Map: Cyclone Fani Approaches India

The “extremely severe” storm was expected to make landfall in India on Friday morning.

‘We live in fear,’ coastal resident says of storm

Streets along India’s coast were largely empty as residents heeded warnings from the India Meteorological Department to stay indoors.

“In Bhubaneswar, we are all indoors,” said Jagdish Chandra Rout, head of communications for Gopalpur Port Limited. “Nobody is visible on the road, nothing is moving on the road.”

Mr. Rout said he felt the area was much better prepared for the storm than in 1999, when more than 10,000 people died in a cyclone.

“We feel that yes, we may have some difficult days ahead, but no panic,” he said. “We are prepared, we know what is coming when and where.”

In Puri, winds and rainfall were increasing, said Bishwajit Panda, a 19-year-old college student.

“We fear that our house should not be damaged, our shop should not be damaged, some tree should not fall on house, electric pole should not fall on shop,” he said. “We live in fear. During the days of cyclone it is the life of fear we live.”

Image

A cyclone relief shelter in Puri on Friday.CreditDibyangshu Sarkar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mass evacuations in India and Bangladesh

The Indian authorities evacuated more than a million people from parts of the nation’s eastern coast this week.

Using television, loudspeakers, radio and text messages to warn residents about the dangers of the storm, India’s disaster relief agency and meteorological department warned of the “total destruction” to thatched huts in some districts, major damage to roads, the uprooting of power poles and the potential danger from flying objects.

Cyclone Fani is forecast to drop as much as eight inches of rain on northern parts of the state of Andhra Pradesh and on the state of Odisha.

Schools have been closed, fisherman asked to keep off the water and tourists urged to leave the city of Puri, a Hindu pilgrimage site where an elaborate, centuries-old temple could be at risk of severe damage. Airports in the cyclone’s path were closing and hundreds of trains have been canceled.

Along Odisha’s coast, more than 850 storm shelters have been opened, said Bishnupada Sethi, the state’s special relief commissioner. Each can hold about 1,000 people, along with livestock.

“People are reluctant to leave their homes, though, which is problematic,” Mr. Sethi said on Thursday.

In Bangladesh, as the storm approached on Friday the government said it had evacuated half a million coastal residents to shelters by 11 a.m.

The government there, similarly, suspended fishing operations, closed ports and ordered an early harvest of rice crops.

Cyclone’s effects felt on Mount Everest

The cyclone was affecting the weather as far away as Mount Everest, where climbers on their way to the summit turned around after conditions worsened.

At Camp 2, 21,000 feet above sea level, climbers reported an increase in cloud cover and moisture, and high winds tore apart tents. Many climbers from higher up the mountain began making their way down to Base Camp, at 17,600 feet above sea level.

Nepal’s Ministry of Home Affairs banned helicopters from flying in high mountain areas through the end of the weekend and issued a warning to mountaineers and trekkers on the mountain. More than 1,000 people, including climbers, high-altitude guides, support staff and government officials, have reached Everest Base Camp since the spring climbing season began in March.

Image

Fishermen pulling a boat to higher ground on a beach in Puri, on Thursday.CreditDibyangshu Sarkar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A history of devastating cyclones

The Bay of Bengal has experienced many deadly tropical cyclones, the result of warm air and water temperatures producing storms that strike the large populations along the coast.

Officials said Cyclone Fani could be the most powerful to strike India since 1999, when a cyclone lingered for more than a day over India’s eastern coast, flooding villages, blowing apart houses and ultimately killing more than 10,000 people.

Since that storm, the authorities in the region have significantly improved disaster preparation and response capabilities, strengthening coastal embankments and preparing evacuation routes, according to a World Bank report. Subsequent major storms have resulted in far fewer deaths.

The state of Odisha was much better prepared for Cyclone Phailin in 2013. About one million people were evacuated, more than twice as many as in 1999, and the storm killed 45 people, the World Bank said.

“All of these efforts bore fruit when Cyclone Phailin made landfall,” the report said.

Cyclone Fani could still bring severe dangers to the region, however, threatening flooding in inland river basins, depending on its path, in the Ganges River delta region, where the Indian city of Kolkata is home to millions.

In 2007, Cyclone Sidr killed at least 3,000 people in nearby Bangladesh, and in 1991, a cyclone killed at least 1,000 there and left millions homeless. In 1970, the so-called Great Bhola Cyclone drove a tidal wave into what was then East Pakistan, in a disaster that killed an estimated 300,000 people, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s World Weather & Climate Extremes Archive.

“Unfortunately this region, especially the delta area, has produced the highest death tolls from tropical cyclones on the planet,” said Mr. Herndon, the storm researcher. “Many people live in regions barely above sea level.”

And Cyclone Fani has already proved “one of the most intense in the past 20 years,” according to Clare Nullis, a spokeswoman for the World Meteorological Organization.

Image

A road in Puri on Friday.CreditDibyangshu Sarkar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/world/asia/cyclone-fani-india-live.html

2019-05-03 05:28:05Z
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