The India Meteorological Department has issued a red alert for Odisha, Chhattisgarh and the Vidarbha region as a deep depression tracks across eastern India — a warning with direct implications for logistics and supply chains running through the region.

The system is currently positioned over north interior Odisha and adjoining Gangetic West Bengal, moving west-northwestwards at around 12 kilometres per hour.

The IMD expects the depression to move across north Odisha, south Jharkhand and north Chhattisgarh over the next 24 hours, bringing heavy to very heavy rainfall to a corridor that includes several industrial and mining hubs.

Isolated areas under the red alert could see extremely heavy rain exceeding 204.5 millimetres, raising the risk of flooding, waterlogging and disruption to road and rail freight movement.

An orange alert has also been issued for Haryana, Chandigarh, Punjab, western Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura, where heavy to very heavy rain is forecast.

Additional rain alerts cover Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar, with warnings of thunderstorms and strong winds that could affect logistics operations more broadly.

The IMD has cautioned residents in hilly regions about landslide risk and advised against travel on waterlogged roads — guidance that businesses with field operations in the affected states will need to factor into short-term planning.

The department said it would continue monitoring the depression’s trajectory closely, with updated forecasts expected as the system evolves over the coming days.

The IMD typically classifies a weather system as a deep depression when sustained wind speeds near its centre reach between 51 and 61 kilometres per hour, one step below a full cyclonic storm in intensity.

Red alerts from the IMD are reserved for situations warranting immediate action, urging state disaster management authorities to prepare for potential large-scale disruption to travel, power supply and daily life.

(Image: Photo by McKay Savage from London, UK, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)