United Nations: UN’s humanitarian agencies have met ahead of Cyclone Fani arrival in India to study the readiness for it, according to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesperson Stephane Guterres.
The spokesperson on Friday, at his news briefing, stated: “Our colleagues in India are well aware (of the situation). The UN humanitarian agencies in India have also met ahead of the storm’s arrival to take stock of preparedness measures.”
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) referred to the evacuation of over a million people from the endangered areas and the opening of thousands of cyclone centres and said: “it is to be hoped that the massive mobilisation operation ahead of Fani will keep casualties to a minimum”.
The Geneva-headquartered WMO noted that the fatalities from severe cyclones have been coming down in India because of “forecasts and warnings and better-coordinated disaster management”.
Fani was less intense at landfall than either of those two, “but is still one of the most intense storms to make landfall in Odisha for 20 years”, it added.
The Indian government’s “zero casualty” policy for cyclones and the pinpoint accuracy of the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) early warning system have helped reduce the possibility of deaths from cyclone Fani, according to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (ODRR).
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