The government on Friday shifted 12.40 lakh people of the country’s coastal districts to cyclone shelter centres or safer places till this evening as the severe cyclonic storm ‘Fani’ is likely to hit Khulna and southwest coastal area by midnight.

‘We have shifted 12 lac 40 thousand 795 persons to 4071 cyclone shelter centres. We could shift around 18 lac people to shelter centres before the Fani makes landfall in Bangladesh,’  Disaster Management and Relief Senior Secretary Md Shah Kalam told a press conference at the ministry, reports the BSS.

Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque, State Minister for Disaster Management and Relief Dr Md Enamur Rahman, Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary Md Nojibur Rahman, Principal Information Officer Joynal Abedin and Meteorological Department Director Shamsuddin Ahmed, among others, were present on the occasion.

Shamsuddin said it rained all day long today at different parts of the country due to the influence of Fani.

Fani may make landfall in Bangladesh at midnight tonight but the cyclonic storm got weakened, he said.

The World Meteorological Organization said Fani is ‘ one of the most intense’  storms in last 20 years in the region.