Cyclone Arnab Makes Landfall in Andhra Pradesh
The storm came ashore in the early hours of Wednesday, local time, with winds forecast at 125 to 135 kilometers per hour and a storm surge of up to 2.5 metres. No deaths had been reported, but trees were down and power was out in places along the coast.
Cyclone Arnab started making landfall in India's Andhra Pradesh state in the early hours of Wednesday, local time, bringing high winds and heavy rain that uprooted trees and knocked out power in places along the coast. The India Meteorological Department put the wind speed over the landfall area at 125 to 135 kilometers per hour, gusting to 150, for the next four hours, before easing gradually.
A storm surge of 1.5 to 2.5 metres above the normal tide was very likely to flood low-lying areas of Andhra Pradesh over the next six hours, the weather office said. No loss of life had been reported so far, the office of the state's chief minister said, though trees were down in several places and power supply was disrupted.
Thousands moved before the storm arrived
Thousands of people were moved out of vulnerable areas along India's eastern coast before landfall. Nearly 50,000 people had been moved to shelters by Monday night, out of an estimated 400,000 who needed to be evacuated, Prakhar Jain, managing director of the Andhra Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority, told Reuters on Tuesday. Evacuation was still going on, he said.
Authorities had readied 1,763 cyclone shelters and positioned national and state disaster response teams in 11 high-risk districts, according to state officials. At least 12 trains were cancelled in the east, and rail services on 53 routes along the southern coast were suspended for Tuesday and Wednesday.
In neighbouring Odisha, there had been no evacuations so far, the state's special relief commissioner, Rajesh Prabhakar Patil, told Reuters. Schools and colleges in five districts there were closed for Tuesday and Wednesday. Television pictures showed waves crashing on deserted beaches and shuttered shops along the affected coast.
Where the storm came from
Arnab formed over the Bay of Bengal and strengthened through Monday and Tuesday. The weather office had expected it to cross the coast near Yanam, between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam, by Wednesday morning, bringing strong winds and intense showers to Andhra Pradesh and neighbouring Odisha.
In Nepal, authorities cautioned tourists against going into high-altitude areas, warning that the storm could bring torrential rain, snowstorms and avalanches from Thursday night through Saturday. The warning came as the country was still recovering from a deadly flash flood in August that killed about 1,500 people.
The Bay of Bengal is one of the world's major regions for tropical cyclones, and India's eastern coast has been hit hard before. A super cyclone that struck Odisha in October 1999 killed nearly 10,000 people and remains one of the country's deadliest natural disasters.
