24 dead, dozens missing as cyclone batters Covid-stricken India

At least 24 people were dead and almost 100 missing on Tuesday after a monster cyclone slammed into western India, compounding the country's woes as it battles a devastating coronavirus surge.

Hundreds of thousands of people were left without power after Cyclone Tauktae hammered the Gujarat coast on Monday evening.

Wind up to 130 kilometres (80 miles) per hour smashed seafront windows and knocked over power lines and thousands of trees, blocking roads leading to affected areas, officials said.

The colossal swirling system is the latest of a growing number of increasingly severe storms in the Arabian Sea blamed on climate change.

"I have never experienced such intensity in my life," a hotel owner in the town of Bhavnagar said. "It was pitch dark as power was cut off and winds were making a roaring sound. It was scary."

One support vessel serving oil rigs that were walloped by eight-metre waves off Mumbai sank and 96 of the 273 people who had been on board were missing, the Indian Navy said Tuesday.

The defence ministry said 177 people were rescued, with operations continuing in "extremely challenging sea conditions". Two other barges and an oil rig were also in trouble.

Elsewhere, four fresh casualties were reported Tuesday, including a child crushed by a collapsing wall and an 80-year-old woman killed by a falling pole, Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani said.

He added that over 16,500 houses were damaged, 40,000 trees uprooted and 2,400 villages without power.

"Since the cyclone made landfall we have not had power or communications," local official Aayush Oak told AFP by phone from the coastal district of Amreli where 40-50 mobile phone towers were damaged.

Although the cyclone was one of the fiercest in decades, better forecasting than in previous disasters meant that 200,000 people in danger zones were evacuated from their homes.

"Our planning over the last three days has paid off. We have managed to minimise human casualties," said Rupani.

But challenges remain. Forecasters warned of a tidal wave of 1-2 metres (3-6 feet) in some areas as the cyclone barrelled inland weakening slightly but still bringing heavy rains and gale-force winds.

- Covid catastrophe -

The deadly weather system hit just as India's healthcare system struggles with a coronavirus surge that in the past 24 hours killed a record 4,329 people.

Mumbai shifted about 600 Covid-19 patients from field hospitals "to safer locations".

In Gujarat, all Covid-19 patients in hospitals within five kilometres of the coast were moved.

Authorities there scrambled to ensure there would be no power cuts in hospitals and 41 oxygen plants.

"Out of the 1,400 covid hospitals, power was disrupted in only 16. In 12 hospitals power has been restored and four are working on generators," Rupani said.

However one Covid-19 patient died in the town of Mahuva after he could not be moved in time before the storm hit, doctors said.

The state also suspended vaccinations for two days. Mumbai did the same for one day.

- Terrible double blow -

"This cyclone is a terrible double blow for millions of people in India whose families have been struck down by record Covid infections and deaths," said Udaya Regmi from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Last May, more than 110 people died after "super cyclone" Amphan ravaged eastern India and Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal.

The Arabian Sea previously experienced fewer severe cyclones than the Bay of Bengal but rising water temperatures because of global warming was changing that, Roxy Mathew Koll from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology told AFP.

"(The) Arabian Sea is one of the fastest-warming basins across the global oceans," he said.

The effects were felt far and wide with authorities in Nepal -- some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) from Gujarat -- advising climbers on Everest and other mountains to stay put.

But more than 200 climbers ignored the warnings and were heading up the world's highest mountain, eyeing the summit by the end of this week, a government official at the base camp said.

Tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea: Why are they increasing?
New Delhi (AFP) May 17, 2021 - A powerful cyclonic system, Tauktae, is expected to make landfall in the Indian state of Gujarat late Monday after barrelling up the Arabian Sea in the Indian Ocean.

It is the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane in the Atlantic and East Pacific Ocean basins and reports say it could be the biggest to hit western India in three decades.

Here are several facts on why stronger cyclones are developing in the region.

- What is a tropical cyclone? -

Cyclones are low-pressure systems that form over warm tropical waters, with gale-force winds near the centre. The winds can extend hundreds of kilometres (miles) from the eye of the storm.

Sucking up vast quantities of water, they often produce torrential rains and flooding resulting in major loss of life and property damage.

They are also known as hurricanes or typhoons, depending on where they originate in the world, when they reach sustained winds of at least 119 kilometres per hour (74 miles per hour).

Tropical cyclones (hurricanes) are the most powerful weather events on Earth, according to NASA.

- Why is climate change fuelling them? -

Oceans soak up more than 90 percent of the heat generated by greenhouse gases, leading to rising water temperatures.

As cyclones draw their energy from warm waters, the rising temperatures are causing intense storms to become more common, experts say.

"Now what is happening -- the Arabian Sea temperatures, the ocean's surface temperatures -- are warming rapidly," climate scientist Roxy Mathew Koll of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology told AFP.

Rising sea levels could also boost storm surges from cyclones, making them even more deadly and destructive.

- Why are there more in the Arabian Sea? -

Scientists say historically, the Arabian Sea averaged two or three cyclones, that were typically weak, in a year.

The Arabian Sea also previously experienced fewer severe cyclones than the Bay of Bengal off India's eastern coast.

But rising water temperatures because of global warming is changing that, they said.

This is the first time since the start of satellite records in 1980 in India that there have been four consecutive years of pre-monsoon cyclones in the Arabian Sea.

"One of the reasons that we are seeing more and more storms and cyclones in the tropical regions, especially regions like Arabian Sea and all, is because of ocean warming, rapid ocean warming," Koll said.

"The Arabian Sea is one of the fastest warming basins across the global oceans."

Cyclones have been relatively rare in Gujarat, but they can be destructive and dangerous. The worst was in 1998 when more than 4,000 people died.

- What else is making them more deadly? -

Cyclones can unleash catastrophic storm surges -- tsunami-like flooding -- when they make landfall. They can be the deadliest part of a cyclone and are only partially affected by wind speeds.

The term "storm surge" refers to rising seas whipped up by a storm, creating a wall of water several metres higher than the normal tide level.

The large swells move faster than the cyclone and are sometimes spotted up to 1,000 kilometres ahead of a major storm.

The surge can extend for dozens of kilometres inland, overwhelming homes and making roads impassable.

A storm surge is shaped by a number of different factors, including storm intensity, forward speed, the size of a storm and the angle of approach to the coast.

The underlying features of the land at the coast, including bays and estuaries, are also at play.

In previous storms, people failed to flee because they did not grasp the surge's deadly threat.

That was the case for 2013's Super Typhoon Haiyan, which left 7,350 dead or missing in the central Philippines, primarily due to the surge.

A storm surge of up to four metres (13 feet) is likely to inundate some coastal districts of Gujarat during Tauktae's landfall, according to the Indian Meteorological Department.

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Six dead as powerful cyclone heads for India
Ahmedabad, India (AFP) May 16, 2021
At least six people have died in torrential rain and winds as virus-hit India braces for a powerful cyclone, officials said Sunday, with more than 150,000 residents set to be evacuated from their homes. Cyclone Tauktae - India's first major tropical storm this season - is moving northwards in parallel with the country's western coast, bringing heavy rains, thunderstorms and strong winds to several states, the meteorological department said. It is expected to make land in coastal Gujarat early ... read more