Biparjoy disrupts infra, but damage contained

Cyclone Biparjoy swept through several parts of Gujarat on Friday, damaging homes, uprooting trees, snapping electricity, and causing flooding in Saurashtra and Kutch in the hours after it made landfall near the Jakhau port late on Thursday, with winds gusting up to 140k/hr.

- Maulik Pathak

Intensive preparations by multiple central and state agencies and the evacuation of over a 100,000 people, however, meant casualties were contained, with two deaths reported before landfall on Thursday. In all, officials said on Friday, 23 injuries were confirmed and no known fatalities had taken place once the cyclone crossed into land.

National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) officials said that a total of 1,963 trees fell, obstructing 263 roads, most of which were restored. The cyclonic winds also caused substantial power outages, with 5,718 power poles collapsing, affecting over 1,051 villages.

In terms of structural damage, Pandey said 65 huts, 20 mud houses and nine brick-and-mortar homes collapsed while 474 more mud houses and two permanent homes were partially damaged.

National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) director general Atul Karwal said: “Two lives were lost before the landfall, which is tragic but there were no deaths after the cyclone made landfall… There is cell phone connectivity and the number of concrete houses damaged is in single digits.”

The massive evacuation appears to have been successful in averting any significant number of casualties, as had been in 2021 when cyclone Tauktae followed a similar trajectory. The lessons from such mobilisation, the template for which was set a decade ago in Odisha, must continue to be followed for future disaster threats.

Originally categorised as an extremely severe cyclonic storm, Biparjoy made landfall as a slightly weakened but still “very severe” cyclone, bringing heavy rain to Gujarat. The storm lost its intensity and was expected to turn into a deep depression as it headed towards Rajasthan, where it was forecast to trigger heavy rain.

Jakhau and Mandvi towns, in Gujarat’s Kutch region, bore the brunt of the cyclone following the landfall that began at 6.30pm on Thursday and took about five hours to complete.