Sathyaseelan, 40, and his family live on the edge of Tamil Nadu’s Ekkiar Kuppam, a fishing village. Cyclone Nivar made landfall at 11.30 pm on November 25 near Marakkanam, barely five kilometres from his hut, which was battered by heavy rain and a turbulent sea.
We spent over five nights at the shelter, the fisherman said, as he cleaned the wet floor of his hut. Every year we end up spending at least a few days there, it is such a problem.
Nivar rapidly intensified last week, with winds initially touching 85-95 km/hr between Marakknam and Puducherry. However, it weakened into a storm and then a deep depression on November 26 and 27, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said. Heavy rains continued in most of Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and coastal Andhra Pradesh on Thursday, November 26, flooding several districts.
IMD on Monday, November 30, warned that yet another cyclone may be headed towards south India. The depression over the south-east Bay of Bengal was near 710 km from Trincomalee, Sri Lanka and 1120 km from Kanyakumari, India on Monday. IMD said it was likely to intensify into a cyclonic storm in the next 48 hours and bring extremely heavy rainfall across southern districts in Tamil Nadu and Kerala on December 1-4. Nivar-affected areas of north Tamil Nadu, coastal Andhra Pradesh, and Puducherry will once again witness heavy rains in this period. Fishermen in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka were advised to return to the coast and not venture into the south-west Bay of Bengal and the south-east Arabian Sea until December 4.
Nivar brought good rains to north and north-eastern parts of Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry. The deficit has come down significantly, S. Balachandran, Deputy Director General of Meteorology, of the Chennai Regional Meteorological Centre of the IMD, told Mongabay-India. Tamil Nadu’s deficit fell from -23% to -15%. Puducherry witnessed surplus rainfall, with Nivar pushing it over 13%.
Each cyclone is different, and Nivar was a rain-filled cyclone. It has completely weakened as of November 28, Balachandran added. Apart from western Tamil Nadu, most of the state has received sufficient rains, he noted. Rains will continue through early December.
The initial prediction was that Nivar could hit anywhere in the 200-km stretch of Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu and Karaikal, Puducherry.
Over 30 houses along the shore were submerged in Bommayapalayam (near Marakkanam). This was the worst-affected village, said Sura Vegadessaperoumal, executive member of National Fishworkers Forum’s (NFF) Puducherry wing. Though Marakkanam’s famed salt pans were flooded, the damage wasn’t severe because it is off-season.
It’s the houses of our workers which are affected, Prabhakaran, a salt pan worker in Marakkanam said. Most are poor, landless Dalit households. It is always difficult for us to get any compensation. Some people are living in shelters now.
Over 2.7 lakh people were evacuated and moved to 3,042 government shelters on Wednesday, November 25 night by state officials, mitigating Nivar’s impact.
We were instructed to move people from all low-lying areas on November 23-24, Suresh Babu, a revenue official from Karaikal, Puducherry, said.
Local officials had been inspecting cyclone shelters beforehand, arranging the movement and rescue of people from low-lying areas and inspecting the damages after the cyclone passed. The National and State Disaster Response Forces were deployed in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh.
Nivar’s immediate impact was less in comparison to previous cyclones Thane (2011), Vardah (2016) and Gaja (2018). If we got off easy, it is thanks to sheer providence, Chennai-based activist Nityanand Jayaraman said.
The initial losses estimated in the agricultural and other sectors are around Rs 400 crores in Puducherry. Tamil Nadu reported four deaths, damages to 118 houses and 10,000 hectares of farmland, and uprooting of 1086 trees. Over 40,000 houses were flooded in Chennai. In Andhra Pradesh, eight people died and over 4.91 lakh hectares of agricultural land was damaged.
Each cyclone has different characteristics depending on the wind speed, rain-bearing capacity and other parameters. We cannot compare the impacts of Gaja to Nivar, Balachander said. He added that the impact also depended on what areas are hit, ground conditions and disaster preparedness.
Heavy rains continued in districts of Chennai, Thiruvalluvar, Puducherry, Chengalpattu, Villupuram, and several southern districts of Andhra Pradesh as Nivar, one of the wettest cyclones in recent years, crossed. But the worst may not yet be over as rains may continue in the coastal districts.
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