On Cyclone Watch and a Dramatic Rescue

A Happy New Year to You All

Quite ironically even as we were putting the final touches to a report on the drought in the State to be sent to the Central Government there came the warning from the Met Department that a major cyclone was on its way. Initially it was forecast that it was only a deep depression but later the warning was upgraded to a cyclone called ‘Thane’. As soon as the warning bulletins began to arrive we started our own preparations. When the warning bulletins said that the cyclone could grow into a severe cyclonic storm with wind speeds going up to 150 kmph we decided to go on round the clock alert which meant night duties for all of us.

I was on night duty on Thursday night and went home for just an hour for dinner and a change of clothes before coming back to office. Until midnight everything seemed normal while I sat working on a drought report. Just when I decided to lie down the fax machine spat out a message from a coastal district. The message said that six fishing boats with thirty fishermen were missing at sea and sought assistance from the Navy for large vessels as Coast Guard ships were unable to do so. The procedure here is to send a message to the Ministry of Home Affairs Control Room in Delhi to direct the Navy. The District administration had approached the Navy directly which wasn’t the right way. But anyway we sent a message to Delhi at midnight. It would be of comfort to learn that there is a round the clock control room in the Nation’s capital at all times for such situations. After we sent the message I rested for a couple of hours and when I woke up I learnt that a Navy Dornier had already made a sortie to check up on the fishermen.

There are some people who risk their lives everyday in their professions to make a living and fishermen are one such category. Everyday they venture out into the treacherous seas not really knowing if they will return alive. When I called up the officer in the district I learnt that the fishermen on one boat had spent the night in the sea on the bottom of their boat which had turned over. Imagine spending a full night in the dark in a rough sea not knowing when you will go under. The lucky thing was that later in the day they were all rescued by Navy helicopters and INS Dega. Another two boats had drifted to far away places and reached the shore safely. The next day it was all in the papers about the dramatic rescue.

However, we were on tenterhooks for three days wondering where the cyclone would hit. About five days before ‘Thane’ actually crossed the coast the reports said that it would cross the coast somewhere between Chennai and Nellore in AP. The satellite maps showed the path and the forecast was that ‘Thane’ would cross the coast somewhere between Nellore coast and Chennai. It is amazing how the India Meteorological Department is able to track the cyclone from its inception to its end with the help of the weather satellites. It went as predicted and ‘Thane’ missed AP and crossed the coast near Puducherry in Tamil Nadu. Around forty people were killed in TN and in AP there were three deaths- two of fishermen and another of an old woman who died when a tree got uprooted in the heavy winds and fell on her house. Many boats were damaged but there weren’t many casualties as we feared. One reason could be that there was ample time to warn the people along the coast and everyone in the Government right up to the CM monitored everything. The media too took a lead in making the public aware of the dangers of ‘Thane’ and its aftermath which helped things.

With ‘Thane’ 2011 came to an end and I hope 2012 would be uneventful.