Cyclone kills 5 as it hits India’s eastern coasts
Print Edition
CYCLONE Hudhud blasted India’s eastern seaboard yesterday with gusts of up to 195 kilometers per hour, uprooting trees, damaging buildings and killing at least five people despite a major evacuation effort.
The port city of Visakhapatnam, home to 2 million people and a major naval base, was hammered as the cyclone made landfall, unleashing the huge destructive force it had sucked up from the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal.
Wreckage was strewn across Visakhapatnam, known to locals as Vizag. Most people heeded warnings to take refuge, but five were killed by falling trees and masonry, and thousands of homes were damaged, emergency officials said.
The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, the state that bore the brunt of Hudhud’s onslaught, said the extent of damage would only become known after the storm abates.
“We are unable to ascertain the situation. Seventy percent of communication has totally collapsed. This is the biggest calamity,” N. Chandrababa Naidu told Headlines Today television.
“We are asking people not to come out of their houses,” Naidu said, adding that damage assessment would start today.
“We are mobilizing men and material immediately.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Naidu and promised “all possible assistance in relief and rescue operations.”
The low toll reported so far followed an operation to evacuate more than 150,000 people to minimise the risk to life from Hudhud — similar in size and power to Cyclone Phailin that struck the area exactly a year ago.
After a lull as the eye of the storm passed over the city, winds regained their potency.
The India Meteorological Department forecast a storm surge of one to two meters above high tide that could result in flooding of low-lying coastal areas around Visakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram and Srikakulam.
At a hotel in Visakhapatnam the storm smashed windows and flooded the ground floor.
“I never imagined that a cyclone could be so dangerous and devastating,” said one guest. “The noise it is making would terrify anyone.”
An operations center in state capital Hyderabad was inundated with calls from people seeking help, including 350 students stranded in their hostel without food or water, said K. Hymavathi, a top disaster management official.
Visakhapatnam port suspended operations on Saturday night, with 17 ships which had been in the harbor moving offshore where they would be less at risk from high seas. The airport was closed and train services suspended.
Forecasters rated Hudhud as a very severe cyclonic storm that could pack gusts of 195kph and dump more than 24.5 centimeters of rain.
The cyclone was strong enough to have a “high humanitarian impact” on nearly 11 million people, said the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System, run by the United Nations and the European Commission.
Hudhud was likely to batter a 200-300 kilometer stretch of coastline before losing force as it moves inland, forecasters said.
It is expected to continue to dump heavy rain in northern and northeastern India and, eventually, snow when it reaches the Himalayas.
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