For cyclone warning look for ants!

Residents of this village near Kulpi in South 24 Parganas district of coastal West Bengal have learnt just that and avert major tragedies.     

"Ants carrying eggs to higher positions in the house, snails inching up higher grounds in the fields and flocks of grasshoppers flying haphazardly indicate rainy weather coupled with strong wind and cyclone," says Amba Gharami, a villager.     

Apart from the natural indicators, the villagers also depend on weather bulletins and cyclone warnings for fishermen broadcast by All India Radio in Kolkata.     
Septuagenarians like Hari Charan Haldar and Abhaya Charan Mondal keep an extra pair of new dry cell batteries and mend transistor sets before monsoon so that no weather bulletin is missed out.   

Halder and Mondal feel the occurrence of natural disasters has become more intense in recent times.     

"Particularly last three weeks of September and first two weeks of October are bringing battering rain, flood and cyclone for the past few years," they say.