LOVE IS STORM-BLIND: A couple steal a romantic moment at the seafront in Mumbai against the backdrop of gathering clouds. (Reuters picture)

Mumbai, Nov. 11: If the fire engulfed the east, the treeless cherry spared the west.

Cyclone Phyan roared towards the western coast, sending into a tizzy the Maharashtra administration, which went into an overdrive to prevent a calamity of the magnitude of the July 2005 Mumbai floods.

The government also did not want a repeat of the destruction caused by cyclone Aila, meaning fire in a Maldives dialect, on the eastern coast and Calcutta earlier in the year.

Based on the Met department’s perception that Phyan — a Burmese word meaning a cherry which has dropped from a tree — would not hit Mumbai, but could trigger winds with 60 to 70 kmph velocity and heavy rain, the administration issued orders to close educational institutions after 1pm.

Women working in government and private establishments were asked to return home after 2pm. Additional suburban trains and state transport buses were rolled out.

The disaster control cell was operationalised for 24-hour monitoring. Teams were sent to six low-lying areas to clear waterlogging if it rained heavily around the high tide scheduled at 7.47pm.

Alerts were issued for residents in coastal areas like Geeta Nagar in Colaba, Worli Koliwada, Nariman Baug, Carter Road in Bandra, Khar and Versova. Each ward was asked to reserve five municipal schools in the area for providing shelter to people in case of heavy rain and possible flooding.

The navy and the coast guard also activated rescue operations, and deployed nine teams along coastal areas across the city, including Colaba, Worli, Ghatkopar, Mankhurd and Malad.

The navy sent a Chetak helicopter to rescue eight fishermen from a sinking boat off Ratnagiri in the Konkan. The coast guard deployed a Dornier aircraft and a ship to warn fishermen to return to harbour.

The ship was diverted following calls from two vessels stranded in the rough sea, and it rescued 16 people from them.

The final one-dayer between India and Australia, scheduled at the D.Y. Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, was called off as a steady drizzle continued till well past 5pm.

Some Bollywood film shoots were also affected by the panic created over the cyclone. The filming of Athithi Tum Kab Jaoge, starring Konkona Sen Sharma and Ajay Devgn, at Yashraj Studios was cancelled.

However, by 4pm, weathermen said Phyan had blown over Mumbai and was losing intensity as it moved towards Gujarat. Later in the evening, the met department said the cyclone lay centred as a deep depression over north Konkan and was likely to weaken further.

In neighbouring Gujarat, people living in low-lying areas in Surat, Navsari and Valsad were evacuated. But by evening, the Valsad authorities had also heaved a sigh of relief. Valsad collector M.P. Thakkar said: “The official alert is still in place, but the looming danger has vanished and there is nothing to worry now.”

As Mumbai prepared to tackle Phyan on a war footing, its residents kept their sense of humour. An SMS doing the rounds said the cyclone wasn’t allowed to enter Mumbai because it didn’t have a Marathi name.