Sipu Jha
CHENNAI/VISAKHAPATNAM: The slow-moving cyclonic storm Ditwah on Friday brought rainfall to south Tamil Nadu, while the northern parts, including Chennai, brace for intense showers later this weekend.The storm crawled across Sri Lanka, covering only about 70 km in 15 hours with its speed dropping to nearly 3kmph. While it is expected to weaken into a deep depression by the time it moves parallel to Chennai coast on Nov 30, it may still trigger widespread, heavy rain activity.
Cyclone Ditwah is now at 470km south of Chennai. It is very likely to continue to move north-northwestwards across Sri Lanka coast & adjoining southwest Bay of Bengal and reach over southwest Bay of Bengal near North Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and adjoining south Andhra Pradesh coasts by early morning of 30th November.The cyclonic storm wreaked havoc in Sri Lanka leaving more than 80 dead. India launched ‘Operation Sagar Bandhu’ to send help to the island nation and the first tranche of relief materials was sent by Navy’s aircraft carrier INS Vikrant and frontline ship INS Udaigiri.IMD has retained a red alert for extremely heavy rain (more than 20 cm in 24 hours) on Saturday at one or two places in four coastal districts in north TN. Chennai and 13 other adjoining districts remain under an orange alert for heavy to very heavy rain (12-20 cm) on the same day.P Senthamarai Kannan, director, Regional Weather Forecasting Centre, said wind speeds may pick up from Saturday, reaching 70-80 kmph and gusting to 90 kmph over the delta region, adjoining coastal districts, Puducherry and Karaikal as the storm moves along the TN coast. Andhra Pradesh, too, has set up control rooms and deploying disaster response forces. The weather office has predicted heavy rains in parts of Rayalaseema and south coastal Andhra between Saturday and Sunday. An orange alert(heavy to very heavy rainfall) has been issued for several districts for Saturday. For Sunday, a red alert has been issued for some of the districts.(With PTI inputs)
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