Page 193 - SST Class 08

g Drink only boiled water and eat only fresh g Keep an emergency kit ready at home.
cooked food. g Secure your home or move to a safer place

g Take help from disaster management teams before the cyclone hits your area.
and other agencies. g Store enough non-perishable foods articles
CYCLONES in waterproof bags.
Cyclones can be the most intense storms on the g Do not venture into the sea.
earth. A cyclone is a system of winds rotating g Keep phone numbers of hospitals, police,
counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere help agencies, relatives and friends handy.
around a low-pressure center. The swirling air
g After the cyclone, check gas leaks and dry
rises and cools, creating clouds and precipitation.
the electrical appliances.
There are two types of cyclones — middle
g Avoid floodwater and be careful about
latitude (mid-latitude) cyclones and tropical
snake bites.
cyclones. Mid-latitude cyclones are the main
DROUGHTS
cause of winter storms in the middle latitudes.
Tropical cyclones are also known as hurricanes. Extreme shortage of water in a region is called
drought. It affects human beings, animals and
An anticyclone is the opposite of a cyclone. An
agricultural production. The drought-prone areas
anticyclone’s winds rotate clockwise in the
are those that experience low and variable
Northern Hemisphere around a center of high
rainfall.
pressure. Air comes in from above and sinks to
the ground. High pressure centers generally have More than 70 percent of the total cultivable land
in India is drought-prone. These areas receive
fair weather.
low and highly unreliable rainfall and have
inadequate irrigation facilities.
Th drought-prone areas of India are Rajasthan,
Gujarat, western Orissa, Rayalaseema and
Telangana in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,
Jharkhand, central Maharashtra, interior
Karnataka, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab,
Haryana, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The worst droughts in India have been in 1877,
1899 and 1918, when more than two-thirds of
the country faced acute shortage of rainwater.

The Indian Meteorological Department studies
the development and movement of cyclone in
and around India. They spread warning mes-
sages through television and radio to alert
fishermen, seaports and airports.
Precautions Against Cyclones

g Listen regularly to weather bulletins on
television and radio.

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