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Cyclone Fani batters Odisha, eight killed

Roofs fly, trees fall as cyclone makes landfall at Puri

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Debris and uprooted trees make this road nearly impassable in Fani-hit Puri on Friday
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Eight people died, roofs blown away, power lines snapped, construction crane toppled, trees crashed, and low-lying villages were flooded after Cyclone Fani, the biggest in years, slammed into Odisha coast on Friday.

The storm carrying gusty winds with speeds up to 200 kilometres per hour made landfall at Puri between 8 am and 11 am. Around noon, it had weakened into a very severe cyclonic storm and moved towards West Bengal, said the India Meteorological Department. It will enter Bangladesh, where the government has evacuated lakhs of people.

In recent days authorities in Odisha, where 10,000 people died in a 1999 super cyclone, evacuated nearly 11 lakh people as they worried about a possible 1.5-metre (five-foot) storm surge sweeping areas close to the seafront.

A teenager, a middle-aged woman, and an elderly person died due to a falling tree, flying debris and a suspected heart attack, in Puri, Nayagarh and Kendrapara, respectively. Nearly 160 were injured. Five others died elsewhere, while 160 were injured.

Hundreds of widely circulated videos showed villages and towns littered with uprooted trees and power poles. In one clip, the roof of a hostel at AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, is seen blown away. A tall crane at an under-construction site in the Odisha capital sways before crashing onto adjacent houses, shows another video shot on a mobile.

With large-scale evacuation and the administration asking the public not to venturing out, the destruction was largely limited to crops, infrastructure and properties. The extent of damage was not clear on Friday evening. "Energy infrastructure has been completely destroyed. Restoration of electricity is a challenging task," said Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

The Biju Patnaik International Airport witnessed sustained gusting at 100 kmph speed and tore through parts of the airport's facade. Soon after Fani hit the inland, there was power outage in the capital. Puri, Khurda, Bhubaneswar and Cuttack bore the maximum brunt of the storm's impact.

In Bengal, hotels at Digha in east Midnapore district, one of the most popular weekend getaways in south Bengal, have been vacated. All shops along the beach have been shut. Bipradas Chakrabarti, the secretary of Digha Shankarpur Hoteliers Association, said apart from a very handful, almost all the guests had left hotels.

Andhra Pradesh too saw heavy rainfall due in its coastal districts and there was damage to over 553 hectares of agricultural land and 520 hectares of horticultural land besides damage to over 2,000 electricity poles.


A baby, born at Bhubaneswar railway station was named Fani

STORM AFTERMATH

HEADED TOWARDS WEST BENGAL

Rs 1K cr – Central assistance to Odisha and Fani-hit states

11 lakh – People evacuated by Odisha govt

  • Assessment of damages to crops, power lines and infrastructure to start; AIIMS PG 2019 exam in Bhubaneswar cancelled; Odisha, WB to get uninterrupted fuel supply, say Indian Oil Corporation
     
  • Developer of ‘The 42’, tallest tower in Kolkata, told to move out crane from site; malls in Kolkata closed; people moved out of dangerous buildings
     
  • Railways to transport relief material at no cost to Fani-hit states; district authorities alerted in Assam; EC takes measures to protect rooms storing EVMs

—With agency inputs

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