707 births, zero casualty during Cyclone Biparjoy in Gujarat

New Delhi, June 18

India registered zero casualties and 707 births at the height of Biparjoy impact in Gujarat with the government on Sunday releasing data which revealed active management of the cyclonic storm that was predicted to wreak havoc.

Zero casualty target was achieved by successful evacuation and sheltering over one lakh people from high impact areas along the Gujarat coast.

The work of evacuation was completed between June 12 and 14, a day before the storm made its landfall in coastal areas of Gujarat, said sources.

They said evacuating senior citizens, women, both pregnant and lactating and small children was a massive task which was achieved by early planning and coordination between the Centre, the state and the district authorities.

“The administration geared up to meet the requirements of everyone in case of any unforeseen circumstance where the calamity could have led to a situation where the communication couldn’t be restored for a week. Water, ration and baby food was all stored to meet the requirement for more than a week. In these three to four days, we registered the birth of 707 children at these shelter homes, and accordingly the arrangement for shifting them to other places was made in addition to ensuring the availability of milk and milk powder at these shelter homes,” sources in the union government said.

Evacuations of people residing in the radius of zero to 5 km and 5 to 10 km from the area of maximum impact were done.

The entire exercise was foreseen by union ministers deputed in Gujarat by Prime Minister Narendra Modi — among them Mansukh Mandaviya was sent to Kutch; Parshottam Rupala to Dwarka, Devusinh Chauhan to Jamnagar, Darshana Jardosh to Porbandar, and Mahendra Manjupara to Gir-Somnath.

Sources said to avoid losses, ports which were to bear the impact — Kandla, Mundra, Mandvi and the Jakhau — were also evacuated.

“More than 10,000 trucks come to these ports every day, their cargo is also kept nearby in the godowns. Due to this busy commercial activity continuous movement of trucks, their loading and unloading happens at these ports. At the same time many ships dock at these ports. These ports too were evacuated to minimize damage,” a statement from the government said.

Meanwhile IMD today said the depression of Biparjoy had moved over central parts of south Rajasthan at a speed of 10 kilometres per hour on Sunday morning and would continue moving east-northward with the same intensity over the next 12 hours.