North coastal Andhra braces for Cyclone Jawad; IMD warns of heavy rain

Cyclone Jawad is likely to reach the coast of north Andhra Pradesh and Odisha by Saturday morning. The weather department has warned of heavy to extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places in north coastal Andhra under the influence of the cyclonic storm.

Eleven teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and three of the SDRF (State Disaster Response Force) have been positioned in the three north coastal Andhra districts of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam on Friday as the deep depression in Bay of Bengal turned into a cyclone 'Jawad'.

Also, six Coast Guard teams and 10 Marine police teams have been kept ready for emergency operations, according to Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma.