As the 'very severe' cyclonic storm over the Bay of Bengal moved towards the east coast and positioned itself 850 km from Paradip, the Orissa government has issued an alert asking coastal districts to gear up for any eventuality.

An alert has been sounded in seven coastal districts. A warning was, however, not issued to the people for now as the system lay at a far off place, G V V Sarma, principal secretary of revenue and disaster management department said.

The altered districts are Balasore, Bhadrak, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Puri and Ganjam. The Cyclone Warning Centre (CWC) here, in its bulletin (issued at 1430 IST) said this morning's 'very severe' cyclonic storm over south-east Bay of Bengal moved in the northern direction and lay centred over south-east Bay of Bengal, about 850 km south-south-east of Paradip.

The system is likely to intensify further and move in the north-north-western direction, it said. Meanwhile, the CWC director Sarat Sahu refused to forecast any possibility of the system hitting Orissa or any other place within any specified timeframe.

"We will be in a position to predict its exact behaviour only after the system comes within 15 degree of the latitude," the director said, adding there was nothing to panic about as the character of the system had not yet been studied properly.

Maintaining the CWC had been in regular touch with the state government, he said, "We will certainly alert the state government much before the system comes closer to the coast."