The irony of the “miraculous fate” that Cyclone Amphan had in store for the tourist sea towns of Digha, Mandarmoni and Tajpur has not been missed by hoteliers since Wednesday.

Although the monster storm — clocking speed of over 150kmph — was initially predicted to make landfall in Digha, it took a slightly different route and hit Haldia instead.

“Driving around Digha on Thursday morning, I could not reconcile what I was seeing. Images from other parts of the state were horrific. It was as though nothing had happened here,” said New Digha hotelier Asif Khan, who said his worst inconvenience on Wednesday was 12 hours without electricity.

“We in Digha were preparing for the worst. We thought the cyclone would finish us after the losses from the lockdown. On the contrary, we are prepared to accept tourists right now,” Khan added.

Sources in the Digha-Sankarpur Hoteliers’ Association said the 1,000-odd hotels at the three sea towns had already suffered losses of over Rs 100 crore.

“If the cyclone had actually hit Digha, instead of Haldia, many of us could have been finished for good,” said association joint secretary Dipra Das Chakraborty.

Earlier last week, block and district administration had prepared Digha to be at the front of Bengal’s line of devastation. National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel had been flown in and positioned around the town.

“But on Thursday, it turned out that NDRF personnel didn’t have much more to do in Digha other than remove a few trees from roads. They went to Haldia immediately afterward.” said Ramnagar 1 block development officer Bishnupada Ray.

Digha-Sankarpur Development Authority vice-chairman and local MLA Akhil Giri attributed the town’s fate to “sheer luck”. “You can see what the images from Haldia are. We were the ones expecting that. Luckily, we had electricity by Thursday morning because we had taken precautions and our hotels are even ready to accept guests again as all our roads are open. But we still have the lockdown to contend with,” he said.