Cyclone Sitrang made landfall in Bangladesh on Monday night with a wind speed of 90 to 100 kmph, battering the coast near Barisal and claiming at least seven lives.
Though the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) predicts the weather in south Bengal districts is likely to improve from forenoon on Tuesday after the cyclone skirted the state's coast, a red alert is in place in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura.
The IMD has forecasted widespread rainfall accompanied by thunderstorms, lightning, and heavy to very heavy and extremely heavy rain at isolated places across Tripura on Tuesday.
A cloudy sky with continuous rain has been predicted in many parts of Meghalaya too, prompting the disaster management authorities in the state to be on high alert. The authorities have decided to keep all educational institutes in the districts of East and West Jaintia Hills, East Khasi Hills, and South West Khasi Hills shut on Tuesday. These districts share borders with Bangladesh.
"In Guwahati, there will be a cloudy sky with moderate rain, with a strong wind reaching 30km per hour on Monday. The heavy rainfall is likely to continue the next day with the sky to remain cloudy. The temperature has also dropped to 23.3 degrees Celsius in Guwahati city," Sanjay O'Neill Shaw, Scientist-F, Regional Meteorological Centre, Guwahati, told The Times Of India.
Meanwhile, the cyclone slammed into low-lying areas of Bangladesh as authorities struggled to evacuate thousands of people to safer areas. Thousands of people and livestock have been shifted from Cox's Bazar coast in Bangladesh and to the cyclone shelters on Monday.
However, Dhaka, Nagalkot in Cumilla Daulatkhan and Charfesson in Bhola and Lohagara in Narail were battered by the storm. The deaths reportedly happened in the districts of Barguna, Narail, Sirajganj, and the island district of Bhola, according to local media reports.
The cyclone is expected to weaken into a deep depression and lay centred at 2.30 pm IST over Bangladesh about 90 km northeast of Dhaka, 60 km north-northwest of Agartala, according to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD).
The system was likely to weaken into a depression during the next three hours and further into a well-marked low-pressure area during the subsequent six hours, it added.
