The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), which had accurately forecast the sea swell surges across the east and west coast, continued to caution coastal states to remain alert to the sea being rough with high waves and inundation of low-lying areas.
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Senior scientist and group director T.M. Balakrishnan Nair informed on Sunday that the notified coastal states of Kerala, south Tamil Nadu, Lakshadweep, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Northern Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, may experience the swell surge till alerts are lifted.
The feedback from the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA) and others said that there were damages reported at a few scattered coastal districts of Kerala and some locations in southern Tamil Nadu. Water gushed into the low-lying areas around May 4 and surging of water is still being experienced in these affected areas as of Sunday forenoon.
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Significant damages have been reported in coastal establishments during these wave surges. However, families close to coasts were relocated to interior places based on the prior warning. Hence, there were no reports of any injury or fatalities to people, he said.
Mr. Nair said the wave surges and rough sea conditions associated with high-period swell waves are approaching from the distant southern Indian Ocean. The event started at approximately 10,000 km away from the Indian coast on April 26 in the southern Atlantic Ocean (15E and 60S) and slowly moved towards the southern Indian Ocean (~35-55E; 60-50S) around April 28.
This caused the high energy swell propagation towards the Indian coastal regions, which hit the southern tip of India on May 4. These long period swells combined with high tide conditions caused the coastal flooding in low-lying areas of Kerala.
“We are presently monitoring the situations in all coastal states and the updates will appear on INCOIS website: www. incois.gov.in/portal/osf/osf.jsp,” he added.