India and Bangladesh have engaged in evacuating millions of people from the path of what is estimated to be the most powerful cyclone(cyclone Amphan) to be experienced by the region in over two decades. The cyclone was expected to make a landfall in the early hours of the day today and has raised fears of extensive damage to houses and property, crops, roads and railway tracks that lie on its path.
The cyclone threat is here at a time when the entire region is fighting the coronavirus pandemic and has already been witnessing massive loss of lives due to the virus. What is also important to note is that with the cyclone on its way to destruction, norms of social distancing also cannot be enforced as stringently as they were being followed under usual circumstances.
This is also the time when thousands of migrant workers in both India and Bangladesh are on the roads in sheer desperation to get back home from the high cities after the announcement of lockdowns destroyed their livelihoods and exhausted their already meagre savings in a matter of days.
While visuals of Indian migrant workers walking on the roads without food and water in a bid to reach back to their native villages is doing the rounds, in Bangladesh millions have lost their livelihood and are locked up in relief camps to keep them safe from the powerful impact of the Amphan cyclone.
The super cyclone Amphan is approaching from the Bay of Bengal and is expected to hit the coast of eastern India and Southern Bangladesh with winds gusting upto 185 kilometres per hour.The Indian water department has said that it is likely that the cyclone would uproot homes and other buildings, roads and railway tracks and uproot communication towers that fall on its way.
It is believed that the super cyclone will cause extensive damage to crops and plantations in West Bengal and Odisha and is likely to tear apart even the large ships and boats in the ocean, The authorities are working in a hurried way to transport people to safe locations to save them from the harsh implications of the super cyclone Amphan.Several trains have been diverted from the capital of New Delhi to destinations that lie in the cyclone’s path and in areas where the cyclone is likely to have the greatest impact, evacuation is going on. It is shelved that the cyclone has the strength to wash away thousands of huts and standing crops. More than 300,000 people have been moved to storm shelters. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee has been taking all due measures to save as many people as she can by evacuating them from the cyclone hotspots and moving them to safer locations.
Bangladesh too has been engaged in moving people o higher grounds and it fears that more than 1.4 million people are likely to be displaced due to the cyclone and 600,000 homes could be destroyed.
