The system lay centered at 5.30 am over Southeast Bay of Bengal, about 450 km west-northwest of Car Nicobar (Nicobar Islands), 380 km west of Port Blair (Andaman Islands), 970 km southeast of Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and 1030 km south-southeast of Puri (Odisha).
'Yaas' is likely to cross the Odisha-West Bengal coasts between Paradip and Sagar Islands around noon on May 26 as a very severe cyclonic storm with wind speeds of 155-165 kmph, Kolkata's Regional Meteorological Centre Deputy Director Sanjib Bandopadhyay said.
The weather system moved west-northwestward and concentrated into a depression on Saturday at 8.30am, close to west of Andaman Islands, the bulletin said.
The orange alert has been issued for moderate or heavy thunderstorms and wind speed with 30-40 km per hour to reach some districts of Odisha within the next three hours.
Talking to reporters at the accident site, he said the issue is of electric point machine, a vital device for railway signalling, and electronic interlocking.
The Eastern Railway has cancelled the departure of Howrah-New Delhi AC Special Express for Wednesday.
As many as 12 teams were deployed and five teams were on standby in West Bengal while additional teams are also in readiness if required.
Cyclonic storm Yaas is very likely to make landfall near Balasore in north Odisha with a speed of 155 kmph to 165 kmph, gusting to 185 kmph, around noon on May 26, the Met department said.
West Bengal and Odisha have evacuated lakhs of people from vulnerable areas to safety as severe cyclonic storm 'Yaas' is nearing the coast and is expected to make landfall near Dhamra Port in Bhadrak district early on Wednesday morning.
The deep depression over central Bay of Bengal is likely to intensify into a cyclonic storm by Sunday evening and after changing course in a northeastward direction from northwest.
Odisha is bracing for heavy rainfall early next week under the impact of a possible cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, which is likely to skirt the state and move towards West Bengal and Bangladesh, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday.
The Odisha government imposed a curfew-like shutdown in three hotspot districts of Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur from 10 pm Thursday, to conduct active surveillance and contact-tracing.
The Integrated Test Range of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has taken various measures to protect its facilities at Chandipur and Abdul Kalam Island in Odisha, which are likely to be affected by cyclone 'Yaas', an official said.
IMD Director General Dr Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said that 'Yaas' is likely to intensify into a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm by Tuesday evening and Chandbali is likely to witness the maximum damage caused by it.
The airport issued a notice to airmen on Tuesday to alert airlines that its flight operations will be suspended from 11 pm to 5 am on Thursday.
Earlier, the IMD had predicted light to moderate rainfall accompanied by wind with 40 to 50 kmph in north coastal Odisha under its impact, he said.
A day after Cyclone Yaas tore through coastal Odisha and Bengal to cause havoc as far as Jharkhand, tornadoes, torrential rains, bridge collapses and swelling rivers continued to plague eastern India as people tried to pick up their lives amid the debris of swept away mud homes and swamped farmlands.
The IMD has also issued a red-coded warning alert to the Odisha and West Bengal coasts.
The cyclone expected to weaken gradually over the next two days.
'Even the most basic water amenities, people like us used every day, didn't exist there at all.'
One person was injured when Puri-New Delhi Neelachal Express hit a road roller and derailed near Bhadrak, about 120 km from Bhubaneswar on Sunday, railway sources said.
An unspecified number of people were evacuated from coastal areas of Odisha where Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore were likely to experience heavy rainfall accompanied by high-velocity winds, particularly on May 19 and 20, IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said.
The cyclone, according to an IMD report early Sunday, is developing into a severe cyclonic storm over the Bay of Bengal and can potentially become a very severe cyclonic storm in the next 24 hours, S N Pradhan, the chief of NDRF said in New Delhi.
According to BJP insiders, every Union minister has been given 3-4 seats to mentor and has been told to work hard on these constituencies in the next 20 months to ensure the party's victory.
At least 29 people were killed after being struck by lightning in different parts of Odisha.
The power infrastructure and the farm sector have also suffered a considerable damage, Chief Secretary A K Tripathy said. However officials said the telecom infrastructure is largely intact.
While man and a woman were reported killed when trees came crashing down on them in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, a 13-year-old girl died in a similar incident in adjoining Howrah. No casualties have been reported from Odisha yet.
The location of the landfall is north of Dhamra and south of Bahanaga, close to Bahanaga block, on the coast, around 50 km of Balasore, he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday reviewed the post-cyclone situation and damages caused by Cyclone Yaas in the state at a meeting in Bhubaneswar where Odisha government demanded long term solutions to mitigate problems of repeated cyclones and provision of disaster resilient power systems.
Relief and restoration work was stepped up on Tuesday in areas ravaged by twin calamity of Cyclone Phailin and resultant floods in Odisha, which affected over 1.2 crore people in more than 16,000 villages and claimed 26 lives. Of the 26, five people died in floods.
Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik had on Tuesday sent a letter to the Election Commission requesting withdrawal of the MCC from all coastal districts to make it easier for the government to handle the impending cyclonic storm "Fani" in the state.
Odisha government has declared lightning as a state-specific disaster.
Ten teams of National Disaster Response Force comprising 307 personnel and 59 boats have been deployed in six flood-affected districts of Orissa.
Flood condition worsened in Orissa on Friday with four major rivers submerging around 600 villages in the state.
Besides strengthening the IMD's infrastructure, Mohapatra said his priority will be to improve the dissemination of weather-related information -- from nowcasts to weather forecasts -- focus on sector-related forecast and give impact-based prediction in all areas.
The Odisha government on Friday renamed the WheelerIsland in Bhadrak district as Abdul Kalam Island.
Orissa government on Tuesday decided to continue air-dropping of food packets in marooned villages as part of relief and rescue operation amid slight respite from flood fury that claimed 27 lives.
Modi reviewed the situation in West Bengal and Odisha with chief ministers Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik, two days after the cyclone, the worst in years, devastated their states.
The extremely severe cyclonic storm, which made landfall at Puri on Friday, unleashed copious rain and windstorm that gusted up to 200 kmph, blowing away thatched roofs of houses, swamped towns and villages, before weakening and entering West Bengal
Jalanga or its neighbouring villages do not have a single bank branch. The nearest bank branch, that of UCO Bank, where Das has an account, is located at Bhadrak, around 20 km from the village.
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