Cyclone Amphan Set To Morph Into A Super Cyclone In 12 hours; Bengal, Odisha On High Alert

Cyclone Amphan is likely to intensify into a “super cyclonic storm” by Monday evening and hit the coasts of West Bengal and Bangladesh on Wednesday (20 May), the Home Ministry has said.

The storm turned ‘extremely severe’ over the Bay of Bengal at 2:30am today, the Indian Meterological Department (IMD) had earlier said.

"The Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm 'AMPHAN' (pronounced as UM-PUN) intensified into Super Cyclonic Storm at 1130 IST of today, the 18th May, 2020 (sic)," the India Meteorological Department or IMD tweeted this afternoon

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has convened a high-level meeting to review the preparedness at 4 pm today.

Seventeen teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are on duty in Odisha and Bengal. Seven teams have been deployed in six districts of Bengal and 10 teams are on duty in Odisha. Each team has 45 members.

West Bengal Home Secretary Alapan Bandopdhyay said that the state is prepared to deal with the situation. Disaster management teams were dispatched to cyclone shelters in the coastal areas and other places for rescue and relief operations where social distancing norms would be strictly followed, he said, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.