Mass evacuations: Six dead as cyclone pummels Indian coast

Met officials say storm will continue to wreak havoc for the next six hours.

BHUBANESWAR:

A cyclone packing winds of up to 200 kilometres an hour made landfall in India on Saturday after authorities evacuated more than half a million people from along the country’s rain-lashed east coast.

Cyclone Phailin barrelled into Andhra Pradesh and Orissa shortly after 9:00pm and would continue to wreak havoc along a 150-kilometre stretch of coastline for the next six hours, according to the country’s meteorology service.

“Very severe cyclone Phailin has just started crossing the coast near Gopalpur [in Orissa],” LS Rathore, the director general of the Indian Meteorological Office, told reporters. “The reported wind speed is 200 kph.”

At one stage, the storm packed gusts of up to 240 kilometres per hour as it churned over the Bay of Bengal, making it the most powerful cyclone to hit the area since 1999, when more than 8,000 died, the Indian weather office said.

“I dread this Phailin. It’s as if the world is coming to an end,” 23-year-old student engineer Apurva Abhijeeta told AFP from Puri, 70 kilometres from Orissa’s state capital Bhubaneswar.

Heavy waves pounded the coast as terrified locals made their way to solid buildings, cramming into packed rickshaws and buses as they travelled. Relief efforts were under way, with free food being served in shelters.

Officials put the number of people who have been evacuated ahead of landfall at more than half a million. Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters that 450,000 had been evacuated in Orissa and around 100,000 in Andhra Pradesh.

A final tally of the damage caused by Phailin will be known only tomorrow. Six people have died on Saturday when wind uprooted trees along the coast. 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 13^th, 2013.