India, 4 Nov – Cyclone Phailin made landfall in India on 12th October severally impacting the states of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. Rapid action by the Indian Government and State authorities to evacuate half a million people, meant that the number of mortalities was low. However 13 million people have been affected with an estimated 1.7 million severely affected. Houses and infrastructure have been destroyed and livelihoods interrupted. MapAction deployed a team of two from Scotland on Saturday 2nd November.
Alistair Wilkie and Felicity Cross will work with two consortia of International Non-Government organisations (including Christian Aid, Action Aid, Care, Save the Children, Oxfam and others), in support of the Indian authorities response to the disaster. The team will also support the wider humanitarian community as requested. They will travel to Odisha to meet with assessment teams including the Sphere India team. It is likely that a team rotation will be required given the scale of this emergency.