Sheekha Bureau
Port Blair, Dec 07: Nearly 1500 tourists remained stranded at Neil and Havelock Islands, due to Depression over southeast Bay of Bengal as despite brave attempt Indian Navy ships failed to evacuate tourists.
Andaman Nicobar Tri-Service Command had launched a massive operation to evacuate and bring back some of the tourists back to Port Blair safely, early this morning but it failed due to extreme weather conditions.
As per fresh inputs, even till evening, the Indian Navy ships were unable to berth at Havelock Jetty due to heavy swells and hence evacuation could not be started.
The Navy ships, which were pressed into service are INS Bitra, INS Bangaram, INS Kumbhir and LCU 38. These ships had braved extreme rough sea and reached Havelock Island.
However, fresh report says there are around 1100 tourists at Havelock and 450 tourists at Neil Island, mostly from West Bengal, Delhi, Bangalore, Gujarat and Mumbai.
Meanwhile according to met department, the depression situated 260km west northwest of Car Nicobar and 310km South Southwest of Port Blair will intensity into a deep depression during next 24 hrs and into a cyclone storm in subsequent 24hrs.
The local Administration has also issued a Heavy Rainfall Warning. According to Andaman’s state Disaster control room Wind Speed will be 40-50km gusting to 60km next 48 hrs.
The general public is advised to take precautionary measures and in case of any emergency contact numbers of State Control Room, District Control Room and Emergency Operation Centres.
Meanwhile, the Andaman and Nicobar Administration has declared holiday for all schools and colleges of Andaman and Nicobar Islands for the 2nd day tomorrow 8th December 2016.
However parents are furious on failure of local Administration to declare holiday on 7th Morning on time. Today by the time holiday was declared most of the students had reached their respective school.
Meanwhile a high level meeting was organized today at State Disaster Control Room of A & N Islands and the meeting was chaired by the Chief Secretary. The Deputy Commissioner of South Andaman was also present during the meeting in which all the Emergency Operation Centres have been kept on high alert together with all the line departments like Electricity, Health, APWD etc.
“There is no panic here at Havelock Island, all the tourists are safe and good, bookings of their rooms are already extended after the intervention of the administration,” said Mr BC Rao, Administrative Officer, Havelock.
Sources in local Administration have however confirmed that the major cause of concern is that the depression is now stationary instead of moving North West direction, till late evening.
As per reports the depression over Southeast Bay of Bengal remained practically stationary during past 06 hrs and it may intensity into a deep depression during next 24 hrs and into a cyclone storm in subsequent 24hrs IMD, which means that Andaman and Nicobar Islands may face more weather hiccups in next 48 hours.
