Why in News

• The extremely severe cyclonic storm Fani barrelled into the Odisha coast, unleashing torrential rain and winds gusting up to 175 kmph, killing at least eight people, bringing rail and air transport to a halt, and swamping towns and villages,

Details:

• The cyclonic system made landfall near the coastal pilgrim town of Puri and brought heavy winds and rainfall to the State capital Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.
• More than one million people in low-lying areas were evacuated to nearly 4,000 shelters, ahead of the cyclone’s landfall.

Re-curving Cyclone

• Cyclone Fani was a ‘re-curving cyclone’ and therefore a harder to precisely predict than
• most cyclones
• Recurving cyclones’ are those that sharply turn north-eastwards instead of a more typical path of north-westwards. In the Indian context, they are relatively rare and harder to track.
• It also had an unusually long gestation period of atleast 10 days.
• Fani was the strongest cyclone to have passed India since cyclone Hudhud in 2014. It’s also
• the first time since 1976 that a cyclone of such intensity will be blowing through India
• The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) and the Navy have deployed men, material and assets as
• part of preparatory efforts for the extremely severe cyclonic storm ‘Fani’.
• They have launched Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations

Role and Mandate of NDRF:

• Specialized response during disasters.
• Proactive deployment during impending disaster situations. Acquire and continually upgrade its own training and skills. Reconnaissance, Rehearsals and Mock Drills.
• Impart basic and operational level training to State Response Forces (Police, Civil Defence and Home Guards).
• Community Capacity Building Programme. Organize Public Awareness Campaigns

Tropical cyclones

• Tropical cyclones are regarded as one of the most devastating natural calamities in the world. They originate and intensify over warm tropical oceans.
• These are ferocious storms that originate over oceans in tropical areas and move over to
• the coastal areas causing violent winds, very heavy rainfall, and storm outpourings.