Cyclone Dana: Flight, Train Services Resume In Bhubaneswar

Cyclone Dana: Flight and train services resumed in Bhubaneswar on Friday morning even though cyclone Dana continued to tear through the Odisha coast since midnight.

Transport Services Resume In Bhubaneswar: Flight and train services resumed in Bhubaneswar on Friday morning even though cyclone Dana continued to tear through the Odisha coast since midnight. Biju Patnaik International Airport resumed its operation with the first flight landing around 9 am, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi told reporters.

The airport operation was suspended from 5 pm on October 24 in view of cyclone Dana which made landfall between Dhamra and Bhitarkanika around midnight. Though the airport authorities had decided to suspend services till 9 am on Friday, the operations resumed a bit early as the weather conditions improved, Airport Director Prasanna Pradhan said.

The East Coast Railway (ECoR), in a statement, said trains started running as per schedule, barring those cancelled earlier in its jurisdiction. Trains coming from Visakhapatnam, Howrah and Kharagpur to Bhubaneswar have started running, an ECoR official said.

A train on the Kharagpur-Visakhapatnam route will arrive at Bhadrak Station at 2 pm, the ECoR said. The ECoR canceled around 203 trains as a precautionary measure for the cyclone Dana.

The railway authorities informed that trains scheduled to originate from Bhubaneswar and Puri will commence their journey after noon on Friday, except the notified cancelled trains.

Meanwhile, the landfall process of the severe cyclonic storm Dana was complete on Friday morning and the system took at least eight and half hours to enter the landmass, IMD said.

"The landfall of 'Dana' started at 12.05 am on Friday and took around eight and half hours to end the process. It was completed around 8.30 am on Friday," an IMD scientist said.

'Dana', which hit the landmass at a wind speed of 110 kmph has weakened and become a cyclonic storm, he said.

The cyclone lay centered at about 50 km north-northwest of Dhamra and 30 km northeast of Bhadrak town at 8.30 am.