Hunker down: On Cyclone Arnab, its landfall

Cyclone Arnab, the first named storm of the North Indian Ocean cyclone season this year, intensified rapidly before making landfall as a ‘very severe cyclonic storm’ on October 28. This particular rapidity is a challenge for forecasters and some models did fail to anticipate how strong Arnab would become. It also moved faster than expected towards the coast, before stalling for a time and beginning the landfall process several hours before the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had predicted it would, in the middle of the night, leaving many district authorities with a potentially narrower window to evacuate high-risk settlements. With core wind speeds of 125-135 kilometres per hour, it delivered more than 100 mm of rain over parts of Anakapalli, Visakhapatnam, Kalingapatnam, Kakinada and Machilipatnam, in Andhra Pradesh. But even though it has completed landfall, southern Odisha likely faces a greater threat only hence. Early reports claimed no loss of life in Andhra Pradesh or Odisha, which has been attributed to the disaster management operations in both States; the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, said there were five deaths in Andhra Pradesh. Regrettably, the suspension of transport services, including road connectivity and flights, closure of schools and offices, and power cuts to minimise risks posed by loose wires remains an essential part of saving lives, entailing other social and economic disruptions that the States must account for, and address, in their post-storm assessments.

Odisha may have to brace for rainfall and waters due to moisture in the storm’s outer circulation, which will arrive over land that has recovered in patches from the fourth wettest monsoon in the State’s history. Extreme rainfall after repeated flooding may face soil that has not drained fully, raising the risk of more flooding following even lower levels of rainfall, and slope failures in hilly terrain. Farmers in Ganjam and Puri have already voiced worries about the risk of prolonged inundation destroying paddy crops, compounding the already considerable financial consequences of the southwest monsoon; Ganjam alone had lost 33% of crops by October. In Sundargarh, however, farmers hope that Arnab will relieve moisture stress in standing crops after a dry month. The IMD has already issued alerts in the Ganjam, Gajapati, Rayagada, Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, and Kalahandi districts, before the rainbelt extends further north. The relatively low figure of deaths will be a testament to proactive governance. However, it is past time that States adopted a zero-disruption approach, especially since property and infrastructure were damaged, and the risk of people being pushed into poverty over lost possessions and livelihoods persists.