Cyclone Arnab forms over Bay of Bengal as Andhra Pradesh prepares to evacuate 570,000

Cyclone Arnab has formed over the Bay of Bengal and is expected to make landfall in Andhra Pradesh by Wednesday morning as a very severe cyclonic storm, with evacuations starting on Monday evening.

The India Meteorological Department said the system intensified into a cyclonic storm early on Monday 26 October. At 5.30am IST it lay centred over the east-central and adjoining west-central Bay of Bengal near latitude 15.4°N and longitude 88.9°E, about 650 km east-south-east of Visakhapatnam, moving westwards at 15 kmph.

It is very likely to intensify into a severe cyclonic storm by midnight on Monday and into a very severe cyclonic storm on Tuesday, before crossing the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coasts between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam by the forenoon of Wednesday 28 October, with maximum sustained wind speeds of 115–125 kmph, gusting to 140 kmph.

A senior Andhra Pradesh disaster management official told Reuters on Monday that the state government had identified 570,000 people as vulnerable and that evacuations would start on Monday evening. Andhra Pradesh has called for boats at sea to return ashore and ordered speedy restoration of power in case of disruptions.

Odisha’s government announced the closure of schools and colleges in five districts for Tuesday and Wednesday, and said it was preparing to move residents of low-lying areas to cyclone shelters. Heavy to extremely heavy rainfall is expected in Andhra Pradesh’s northern and central coastal districts and southern regions of neighbouring Odisha.

Sources: Reuters via Devdiscourse, https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/international/3997104-india-to-evacuate-thousands-as-cyclonearnab-nears-eastern-coast ; India Meteorological Department bulletin via Pragativadi, https://pragativadi.com/cyclonic-storm-arnab-forms-over-bay-of-bengal-set-to-strike-andhra-coast-as-very-severe-cyclone/ ; OMMCOM News, https://ommcomnews.com/odisha-news/cyclone-arnab-forms-over-bay-of-bengal-moving-at-15-kmph/