Cyclone Yaas: Relief Distribution Begins; Dry Food Dispatched To Odisha’s Kendrapada

Bhubaneswar: Wasting no time, the Odisha Government has started dispatching dry food packets to Cyclone Yaas affected districts on Wednesday.

The packing of relief materials has been expedited at Red Cross Bhawan in the city to dispatch the same to cyclone-ravaged districts phase-wise.

With many areas under water after the cyclone, dry food like chuda (flattened rice), jaggery, chhatua, biscuits besides water bottles,  masks and matchboxes are being packed. 

The first batch of relief materials have been sent to Rajnagar block of Kendrapada district today evening. The relief will be sent to other districts like Jagatsinghpur, Bhadrak and Balasore from late night or early tomorrow depending on the clearance of water roads from the areas, said an officer in-charge of the relief work.

“Around 1,000 packets were readied on Tuesday, while another 1,500 packets were packed today and dispatched to Kendrapada,” said Secretary of Indian Red Cross Society, Odisha branch – CTM Suguna.

As many as 3,200 Red Cross volunteers are engaged in the relief work besides hundreds of volunteers from the Youth Red Cross and Junior Red Cross have been mobilised to extend support in carrying out the relief work, she added.

On the other hand the Bhadrak district administration has decided to provide cooked food to people affected by the high-tide.

The Collector stated in areas where the total storm surge has forced seawater to enter villages and people have no way of cooking, these people will be provided cooked/dry food for 3 days.

The Collector has directed Basudevpur and Chandbali BDOs to ensure that not a single person goes hungry in the aftermath of cyclone.

The low lying areas of Chandbali and Basudevpur blocks in the district were inundated with seawater due to tidal wave of height upto 1-2 meter.