Mumbai: The trail of devastation left by cyclone Nisarga - which claimed 6 lives - was spread across nearly one-third of Maharashtra with Raigad bearing the brunt of its fury, officials said here on Thursday.
Mumbai appeared to escape the worst of Cyclone Nisarga, the first severe storm to threaten India’s financial capital in more than 70 years.
The city and its surrounds are usually sheltered from cyclones - the last deadly storm to hit the city was in 1948.
Authorities had evacuated at least 100,000 people, including coronavirus patients, from flood-prone areas in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat ahead of Nisarga’s arrival.
In Mumbai, police announced fresh coronavirus restrictions on the city of 18 million people - which was just beginning to emerge from a months-long lockdown - banning gatherings of four people or more until Thursday afternoon, Reuters reported.
Mumbai is India’s worst-hit city, home to a fifth of the country’s more than 200,000 coronavirus cases.
The storm evacuees included nearly 150 coronavirus patients from a recently built field hospital in Mumbai, underscoring the difficulties facing the city ahead of the monsoon season as it struggles to contain the pandemic.
Even as the city’s residents breathed a sigh of relief, forecasters warned Nisarga could still carry a sting in its tail.
The storm disrupted travel as well, with planes grounded during the afternoon and inter-state railway services delayed or diverted to ensure that trains would not travel through the city until the cyclone had passed.
Nisarga comes on the heels of Cyclone Amphan, which killed more than 100 people as it ravaged eastern India and Bangladesh last month, flattening villages, destroying farms and leaving millions without electricity.
Homes damaged
In Raigad, an estimated hundred thousand homes have been damaged, while around 13,000 houses destroyed. More than 5,033 hectares of farmland and fish farms have been destroyed.
Various district Collectors and Divisional Commissioners provided the details of the Nisarga havoc to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray this afternoon.
Relief & Rehabilitation Minister Vijay Wadettiwar said that around 13 to 14 districts - or more than one-third of Maharashtra’s 36 districts - have been affected by Nisarga and he would go on a tour from Saturday for a spot assessment of the damages.
Nearly 76,200 people from low-lying or risk-prone areas were shifted to safer locations to avoid the cyclone fury which injured 16 people in different parts of the state.
The state government has announced a compensation of Rs400,000 to the kin of each deceased victim.
Mumbai, which escaped the cyclone by a whisker, suffered over 80 incidents of tree crashes, some vehicles damaged, and two homes destroyed.