Cyclone Mandous completes landfall, weakens into depression

'Mandous', an Arabic word, means treasure box and the name has been picked by the United Arab Emirates.

Chennai, Dec 10: Cyclonic storm Mandous made landfall off Mamallapuram late on Friday influencing moderate to heavy rainfall in coastal Tamil Nadu and weakened into a deep depression on Saturday. Several parts of Chennai are facing heavy rainfall and strong winds after Cyclone Mandous made landfall off Mamallapuram.

"Cyclone MANDOUS rear sector has moved into land and the landfall process has been completed. It is very likely to move nearly westnorthwestwards and gradually weaken into a deep depression during next 2 hours and into a depression by noon of 10th December," IMD said in a tweet at 4:48 am.

Mandous, pronounced 'man-dous' is an Arabic word and it means treasure box and the name was reportedly picked by the United Arab Emirates."Cyclone Mandous crossed the coast and is in deep depression and its strength is weakening. It is moving towards the Northwest direction so areas in northwest districts will witness strong winds of 55-65 kmph which will further decrease by evening to 30-40 kmph," a news agency quoted S Balachandran, DDGM, RMC Chennai, as saying.

On the other hand, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has made an appeal to people to avoid going out until Cyclone Mandous weakens. Reports claim that almost 65 trees fell in three hours and motor pumps are being used to remove water stagnation in low-lying areas. Notably, National Disaster Response Force personnel are on standby.

The government has said that it has taken all the precautionary measures in view of Cyclone Mandous. "The government has taken all the precautionary measures and the officers are regularly monitoring the situation," Tamil Nadu CM Stalin said.

Collector has declared a holiday for schools and colleges in Sirumalai and Kodaikanal for Saturday. Heavy rains with strong winds were experienced in Puducherry on Friday as cyclone Mandous is expected to cross Puducherry and Sriharikota on Saturday at midnight or morning. The three states given red alerts are Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh. Doppler Weather Radar Karaikal and Chennai are monitoring the cyclone.

As many as 16,000 police personnel and 1,500 Home guards have been deployed here for security, relief and rescue tasks, and a 40-member team of TN State Disaster Response Force, in addition to 12 District Disaster Response Force teams, are on standby, police said.

As many as 16,000 police personnel and 1,500 Home guards have been deployed here for security, relief and rescue tasks, and a 40-member team of TN State Disaster Response Force, in addition to 12 District Disaster Response Force teams, are on standby, police said.

With inputs from agencies