BHUBANESWAR: With the Met department forecasting a cyclone in Odisha-Andhra Pradesh coast by Sunday, the government on weekday cancelled puja holidays of its staff in fourteen districts and ordered preparation of Disaster rapid Force altogether vulnerable points.

“The government has cancelled puja holidays of staff in coastal districts in sight of possible cyclone,” Revenue and Disaster Management Minister S N Patro told reporters.

“Besides issuing directions to different departments to stay aware of matters, the govt has already ordered preparation of Odisha Disaster rapid Action Force (ODRAF),” he said.

The minister additionally directed that a mock drill of ODRAF and fire personnel be held.

The latest bulletin issued by the Met department recommended that a tropical storm production over the Andaman Sea would gather speed and damaging power once it crossed the Odisha-Andhra coast on Saturday. “The wind speed of the system throughout the landfall are going to be between 175 to 185 kilometre per hour,” the bulletin said.

The depression over the North Andaman Sea that touched northwestward with a speed of 13 kmph throughout the past 6 hours, intensified into a deep depression and lay centred at 5.30 am nowadays over north Andaman Sea, regarding 1100 kilometre east-southeast of Paradip and 1200 kilometre east-southeast of Visakhapatnam, it said.

The system, it said, would intensify into a cyclonic storm within the next twelve hours. it might move west-northwestwards and cross Andaman islands close to Mayabandar by noonday nowadays, as a cyclonic storm.

The system would then still move west-northwestwards for someday then northwestwards and cross north Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coast between Kalingapatnam and Paradip by night of October 12 as a very severe cyclonic storm with a most sustained wind speed of 175-185 kmph, it said.

Meanwhile, the government has asked fishermen to not venture into the ocean as its condition would stay rough until Monday. The district authorities have additionally been asked to take needed steps in villages placed by the ocean coast.

The fourteen coastal districts wherever most alert has been issued are Balasore, Bhadrak, Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Dhenkanal, Jajpur, Cuttack, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Puri, Khurda, Nayagarh, Ganjam and Gajapati. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was likely to take stock of the case arising out of the impending cyclone.