Cyclone Biparjoy: Railways set up control room in Gujarat, field staff on alert

New Delhi: In the wake of the impending Cyclone Biparjoy, Indian Railways have activated the disaster management room and also opened emergency control rooms in several districts of Gujarat to ensure smooth rail functioning.

The Director of Information and Publication Railway Board, Shivaji Sutar on Monday said that sufficient manpower and machinery has been deployed with adequate preparation to deal with any emergency situation.
Speaking to ANI, Shivaji Sutar said, “Disaster Management room has been activated and field staff has been put on alert mode. Emergency control rooms have been opened in Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Gandhidham. Additional helpline numbers have also been activated”.

“We have deployed sufficient manpower and machinery. Our teams have also been alerted. We have sufficient locomotives ready in case of any power failure, and we are also ready with preparation to evacuate people if a train gets stuck anywhere,” he added.

Earlier, Relief Commissioner Alok Kumar Pandey informed about both central and state governments being on alert mode in view of the cyclone.

“State government and Central government are on alert view of Cyclone Biparjoy. We have 12 NDRF teams and they have been deployed in Kutch, PorbanderJunagadh, Jamnagar, Dwarka, Gir Somnath, Morbi and Rajkot districts. Three teams were requested from the Centre and they have arrived they will be kept in reserve in Rajkot, Gandhidham and Kutch,” the Relief Commissioner told ANI.

Earlier in the day, PM Modi also chaired a high-level meeting to review the preparedness of ministries/agencies of the Centre as well as Gujarat to deal with the situation.

According to the official statement, Prime Minister directed senior officers to take every possible measure to ensure that the State Government safely evacuates people living in vulnerable locations and to ensure maintenance of all essential services such as power, telecommunications, health, drinking water etc and are restored immediately in the event of damage caused to them.

During the meeting, India Meteorological Department (IMD) informed that Cyclone Biparjoy is expected to cross Saurashtra and Kutch between Mandvi (Gujarat) and Karachi (Pakistan) near Jakhau Port (Gujarat) by noon of June 15 as a very severe cyclonic storm with a maximum sustained wind speed of 125-135 kmph gusting to 145 kmph.

Later in the day, India Meteorological Department said that impending Cyclone Biparjoy will cross near Gujarat’s Jakhau Port on June 15 as a ‘Very Severe Cyclonic Storm’.

“ESCS (extremely severe cyclonic storm) #Biparjoy weakened into VSCS (very severe cyclonic storm) and lay at 23.30 IST, about 310km SW of Porbandar, 320km SW of Devbhumi Dwarka, 380km SSW of Jakhau Port. To cross near Jakhau Port (Gujarat) by the evening of 15th June as VSCS,” IMD said in a tweet.

Union Home Ministry also released an advisory and advised total suspension of fishing operations over the east-central and adjoining west-central Arabian Sea and northeast Arabian Sea till June 15 in the wake of extremely severe cyclonic storm ‘Biparjoy’.

In an advisory on Monday, the ministry asked Kerala, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra governments to keep a close watch on the situation in the wake of the severe cyclonic storm and take appropriate precautionary measures. It called for judicious regulation of offshore and onshore activities.

The advisory, which has also been sent to the Chief Secretaries of Lakshadweep and Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, said that district authorities should be asked to monitor the situation in their areas.

Notably, a total of 67 trains have been cancelled in view of cyclone Biparjoy which is set to make landfall on Thursday in Gujarat, said CPRO Western Railway on Monday.