Cyclone Sidr heads towards Calcutta by Steph Ball
Tropical storm 06B (code name) has intensified over the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal and has become a strong category 4 cyclone now named ‘Sidr’.
The eye of Sidr is around 574 miles (924 kilometres) south of Calcutta, India and the west coast of Bangladesh. Sidr is moving north at approximately 7 mph (11 km/h). The category 4 storm has sustained winds of around 140 mph (225 km/h) with gusts reaching 170 mph (274 km/h).
The storm has intensified rapidly but The Joint Typhoon Warning Center expects it to lose power as it nears land. Sadr could produce some very heavy falls of rain as it makes landfall giving rise to flooding and landslides across a large area.
Northeastern India and Bangladesh are regularly affected by tropical storms that form out in the Bay of Bengal. In 1991, a powerful cyclone that hit near Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh, left 138,000 people dead and around 10 million homeless.
Cyclone Sidr is expected to make landfall early on Friday.
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