Tripura’s spell of extreme weather may not have ended yet.
Since Friday (May 24), heavy rain and thunderstorms have caused over 700 people to be displaced into relief camps across the small northeastern state of India. Now, Skymet says, “pre-monsoon weather activities” there, as well as in nearby states of the region, are picking up pace after a brief lull.
This will mean that over the next two or three days, the entire northeast may see an uptick in stormy weather. “At present, a cyclonic circulation is persisting over Assam and adjoining parts of Meghalaya. Moreover, humid winds blowing over the region from Bay of Bengal are continuously increasing moisture in Northeast India,” Skymet noted this morning (May 27).
Tripura is not likely to bear the brunt of the storms in the region, at least not this time. States further north—Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, and Nagaland—will face heavier rains than Manipur, Mizoram, and Tripura, Skymet said.
Yet, the recent thunderstorms have damaged over 1,000 houses in the state, along with the displacements. Trees and electric posts, too, have reportedly been uprooted. “A total of 40 rescue boats were pressed into service by the state revenue department to evacuate the people from affected areas. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and Tripura State Rifles (TSR) have also joined the rescue operations,” Sarat Das, head of the state disaster management authority, told the Press Trust of India (PTI).