Now Cyclone Yaas looms for India, week after deadly storm in west

Moving northwards in Bay of Bengal, Cyclone Yaas is likely to hit eastern states of West Bengal and Odisha on Wednesday.

A severe cyclone is brewing off India’s eastern coast, the nation’s weather bureau has warned, as the death toll rose from a huge storm that wreaked havoc in the west of the coronavirus-hit nation last week. Moving northwards in the Bay of Bengal, the depression was set to form a cyclone – to be dubbed Yaas – before intensifying and hitting the eastern states of West Bengal and Odisha on Wednesday, the India Meteorological Department said. The storm could pack winds of up to 165 kilometres (100 miles) per hour, hitting occasional highs of up to 185km (115 miles) per hour by mid-Wednesday as a “Very Severe Cyclonic Storm”, the third-worst category, the department said on Sunday.