Let us first know the story behind the pictures. Even before the arrival of the storm, people were evacuated from the coastal areas to safer places in both the countries. They were kept in relief camps. The NDRF team itself distributed food packets to the people in the shelter homes of Gujarat. People were sitting comfortably and the people of the rescue team are giving them food one by one. Special care was taken for the food, drink and well-being of human beings and even animals. The picture of feeding dogs is from Kutch district of Gujarat. On the other hand, there was chaos in Pakistan before the storm hit. The picture is of the relief camp in Sujawal, the southern district of Sindh province. It is raining but there is no arrangement for food inside the camp. Outside, getting wet in the rain, people are queuing up with utensils in their hands to get food. In another picture, the volunteer is holding a packet of food and is surrounded by people. Simultaneously many hands are struggling to get that food packet.
Before the storm, both India and Pakistan shifted people from coastal areas to safer places. In Gujarat, where about one lakh people were shifted to safer places, on the other hand, in Sindh, about 80,000 people were shifted to relief camps. Biparjoy is a Bengali word meaning disaster. Biperjoy made a severe landfall in India and the storm was very weak in Pakistan. This did not have any significant effect except heavy rain there. As a precaution, a ban was imposed on people going into the open sea in Karachi, but by the time the storm reached there, it had weakened so much that the ban was lifted on Friday itself.
Biparjoy is a very dangerous cyclonic storm, but it is a matter of relief that no one died in India. 23 people were injured. Yes, two people did die trying to save goats flowing in a drain in Bhavnagar before the storm. If there was no loss of life, it was because of proper preparation. Learning from past experiences and India’s two-fold progress in space science helped it beat Biperjoy. Exactly 25 years ago in June 1998, when a storm hit Gujarat, it caused a lot of destruction. Kandla Port was almost completely destroyed. 10 thousand people had died. Bipperjoy was also very dangerous but it caused negligible loss of lives and infrastructure. The reason for this is that the accurate prediction of the storm, tracking, when it will pass from where and at what speed, the correct estimation of it gave an opportunity to strengthen the preparations.
People were alerted in time, people were shifted from coastal areas to safer places. All teams related to NDRF, SDRF, Medical Emergency Service were deployed. Amidst the storm, 1152 pregnant women were taken to hospitals or shelter homes. 708 women had safe delivery. Some had caesarean delivery. There was not even electricity. It was dark but the angelic doctors operated successfully. Meanwhile, even the animals were taken care of. More than 200 teams were deployed just for wildlife emergency. There were 184 teams deployed in Gir forests alone.
Gusty winds with a speed of up to 150 kilometers per hour caused a lot of destruction in Gujarat. All the trees were uprooted. The tin sheds on the houses scattered like a pack of cards, flew away. Electric poles collapsed. Thousands of villages were plunged into darkness. At some places the road was washed away. Broken and uprooted trees blocked roads and highways. About 600 trees have been uprooted. More than 4600 villages were plunged into darkness. However, power supply was restored in 3580 villages within a few hours. Still more than 1000 villages are still without electricity and the work to restore the supply is going on on a war footing.
At the Jhakau port where Biperjoy made landfall, there are signs of destruction everywhere. In Kutch district alone, about 80,000 electric poles have fallen and 33,000 hectares of farmland have been damaged. In Morbi, a tin shed fell on a woman named Rajshree, due to which she died. One person died after a wall collapsed due to strong wind in Vadodara.