Central team in Odisha to assess damage in cyclone-affected

A seven-member Inter- Ministerial Central Team is in Odisha to assess the damage caused by cyclone Bulbul.

The team will visit Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara and Balasore districts to evaluate the extent of damage and submit a report to the Centre, officials said.

Soon after arriving here on Thursday, the team led by Saheli Ghosh Roy, Joint Secretary (CIC), Ministry of Home Affairs, visited some of the affected areas at Chandbali in Bhadrak district.

The officials said that the team will split into two groups on Friday and make field visits to the affected blocks.

Group A will conduct a field trip to Chandbali and Basudevpur blocks in Bhadrak district and Bhograi block in Balasore district.

Group B will visit Rajnagar block in Kendrapara district and Kujang and Ersama blocks of Jagatsinghpur district.

Both the groups will return to the state capital on Friday evening and attend a wrap-up meeting, to be chaired by Chief Secretary A K Tripathy.

Though the cyclone skipped Odisha and made landfall between West Bengal and Bangladesh coasts on Saturday, heavy downpour and gale-force winds left a trail of destruction, damaging hundreds of houses, uprooting trees, electric poles and affecting telecom towers in the state