India News | Severe Cyclone Dana Begins Landfall on Odisha Coast: IMD

Bhubaneswar, Oct 24 (PTI) The landfall process of severe cyclonic storm Dana began on Thursday night and was expected to continue till Friday morning, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

The storm moved north-northwest at a speed of 15 kmph over the past six hours before making landfall between Bhitarkanika in Kendrapara district and Dhamra in Bhadrak district, with wind speeds of around 110 kmph, a senior IMD official said.

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“The landfall started with the entry of the outer cloud mass of the system. When the centre of the system reaches land, wind speeds are expected to reach 120 kmph,” Umashankar Das, a senior scientist at the Regional Meteorological Centre in Bhubaneswar, told PTI.

Das noted that the landfall process will last for about four to five hours till Friday morning.

Also Read | Cyclone Dana Update: Lakhs Evacuated, Schools Shut, Over 400 Trains Cancelled and Flight Operations Suspended As Odisha, West Bengal Brace for Cyclonic Storm.

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi informed that both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah had inquired about the Odisha government's preparedness to handle the impending storm.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)