Bangladeshi officials are planning to evacuate some 2 million people along coastal areas as the country braces for Super Cyclone Amphan.
In India, officials said up to 300,000 people in the coastal areas of West Bengal and Odisha are in immediate danger from the storm and may also need to be evacuated.
The senior information official for the Disaster Management Ministry said Bangladesh has the capacity to move 9.1 million people to safety in cyclone shelters while assuring Covid-19 social distances measures are followed. So far 5,000 people have already moved to shelters in two districts ahead of the storm.
“We have prepared more than 12,000 cyclone shelters to evacuate coastal villages. The number is more than doubled in comparison to the last cyclone. We are initially aiming to move some 2 million people to these safely,” Bangladesh disaster management junior minister Enamur Rahman said on Tuesday.
Pradeep Jena, special relief commissioner for India’s Odisha State, said emergency services had to balance saving lives from the cyclone with savings lives from the coronavirus.
“Social distancing is definitely a very good concept but enforcing it in the strictest possible manner in a disaster situation may not always be possible,” he said.
