A tweet by the Special Relief Commissioner (SRC), Odisha regarding the ‘impending’ Cyclone ‘Sitrang’ to the State baffled netizens on Sunday. The tweet contains a dummy message which created confusion among the people.
In the dummy message, it has been stated that ‘Sitrang’ is likely to cross north Odisha close to Dhamra today noon as a 'Very Severe Cyclonic Storm' with a maximum wind speed of 155 kmph.
The tweet has left the netizens panic-stricken. Several confused netizens sought clarification over the post.
“Why is this a Dummy Message? Is this posted by mistake?” asked a netizen. “Wouldn’t understand! Is it happening or not?,” tweeted another denizen.
A netizen also expressed surprise over the tweet as the Regional Meteorological Center has not informed about the development yet. “But regional meteorological center not informed yet sir,” he wrote.
Another Twitterati also sought clarification by writing, “Dummy message? Please clarify.”
It is pertinent to mention here that no cylone is going to cross Odisha and it is just a dummy message that has been shared on the official Twitter handle of the Odisha SRC.
Meanwhile, clarifying the same, SRC Pradeep Jena replied to a Twitterati and wrote, "As part of cyclone preparedness @SRC_Odisha @osdma is organising physical mock drills across the state to rehearse our preparedness actions. Nothing to worry. Happy that the dummy message has created a sense of an impending disaster. Y’day TTEx table top exercise was completed."