L.R. Meena, the deputy director general of meteorology at Alipore said, “The cyclone is very strong and has a diameter of about 500km with a wall of clouds about 200km tall. It is travelling at about 18 to 20 kmph. As of now (Wednesday evening) the cyclone has a 60 per cent chance of hitting Bangladesh and a 40 per cent chance of hitting the Bengal coast.”
Bloomberg reports
Indian and Bangladeshi authorities ordered thousands of people to evacuate as Tropical Cyclone Sidr headed across the Bay of Bengal toward the coast with winds of 250 kilometers (156 miles) per hour.
Sidr, a Category 5 storm, was 201 kilometers east-southeast of Kolkata at 11:30 a.m. local time today, according to the latest advisory by the U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center. The storm was moving north at 28 kilometers an hour.
What is SIDR
Sidr, a Category 4 hurricane with wind velocity of 135 knots and a heading due north, is on a trajectory that will envelop the heavily populated southern coast before it moves on toward the capital, Dhaka. It is expected to make landfall sometime around midnight local time Nov. 16. Waters in the rivers flowing into the Bay of Bengal along parts of the southern coast already are rising to critical levels. Some 10 million of the country's 140 million people live along the southern coast. Source
In Orissa
Even as the very severe cyclonic storm `SIDR' over the Bay of Bengal was likely to cross West Bengal-Bangladesh coast east of Sagar Island around midnight today, Orissa government swung into action to help people cope with the impact of the cyclone.
The State government asked the administration in the coastal districts to evacuate people from the coastal villages in the districts of Balasore, Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Puri and Ganjam without delay. Source
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