Srikakulam: Srikakulam, which has a long history of facing cyclones, appears to have been blind-sided, going by the devastation wrought by cyclone Titli last week. Even as the state government is doing its best in expediting relief and rehabilitation work, questions are being raised about the preparedness of authorities to accurately predict weather systems, and the availability of sufficient infrastructure to reduce cyclone casualties.Eleven out of 38 mandals in the district and 129 villages along the 200km coastline were affected by the cyclone. The total population of these mandals is around 3 lakh. Of these, nearly 1.5 lakh people live close to the coast, in huts and concrete houses. Most of them belong to the fishermen community.It was these communities that bore the brunt of Titli, though the Srikakulum district administration moved quickly to get them out of harm’s way to minimise the damage and casualties. “The people who live in huts agreed to go to the 15 cyclone shelters in the 11 mandals. Some were reluctant to go to the cyclone shelters because they were far away. The government should increase the number of cyclone relief centres,” said Arjili Das, convener of Visakhapatnam-based AP Traditional Fishermen Workers’ Welfare Association.Srikakulam district officials said they evacuated 5,700 people from the 11 mandals to 47 cyclone relief centres, that include the 15 permanent shelters in the district, as a precautionary measure before the storm made landfall on October 11. A government official said the administration was caught unawares when Titli hit Srikakulam coast, because the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had forecast that it would make landfall near Gopalpur in south Odisha close to north-coastal AP.“It could be an underestimation by the state government or an error in the IMD’s predictions. All failed to predict the severity of Titli, which led to an estimated damage of Rs 3,466 crore,” the official said. However, he added that the precautionary measures resulted in lesser number of casualties (8).YK Reddy, director of IMD’s centre in Hyderabad, said it’s difficult to correctly predict the landfall spot. “No meteorological centre can predict the exact landfall location of any storm. In Titli’s case, we succeeded in predicting the landfall point as being between Kalingapatnam and Gopalpur coasts. It happened,” Reddy said from Hyderabad.OSRU Bhanu Kumar, emeritus professor in department of meteorology, Andhra University, said generally areas on the right side of a cyclone cause bigger damage. “In Titli’s case, Odisha reported more damage than Srikakulam despite the fact that the cyclone made landfall in the district. The wind movement is more towards the right side during a cyclone,” Bhanu Kumar said.Meanwhile, a new IMD centre for AP will come up in Amaravati soon. The operations will start from a temporary office in the first week of December, with a permanent building to come up at Thullur in Guntur district. The IMD has bought land measuring one acre for Rs 1 crore from the state government.

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