Cyclone Phailin: In the Eye of the Katrina-like killer

A massive, powerful cyclone was hammering India's eastern coastline with heavy rains and destructive winds Saturday, as hundreds of thousands of people living in the region moved inland and took shelter, hoping to ride out the dangerous storm.

In Behrampur, a town about 10 kilometers (7 miles) inland from where the eye of the storm was expected to hit, the sky blackened quickly around the time of landfall, with heavy winds and rains pelting the empty streets.

Estimates of the storm's power had dropped slightly, with the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii showing maximum sustained winds of about 240 kilometers per hour (150 miles per hour), with gusts up to 296 kph (184 mph).

The sea had already pushed inland as much as 40 metres (130 feet) along parts of the coastline by Saturday afternoon.

US forecasters repeatedly warned the storm would be immense.

"If it's not a record, it's really, really close," University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy told The Associated Press. "You really don't get storms stronger than this anywhere in the world ever. This is the top of the barrel."

To compare it to killer US storms, McNoldy said Phailin is nearly the size of Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,200 people in 2005 and caused devastating flooding in New Orleans, but also has the wind power of 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which packed 265 kph (165 mph) winds at landfall in Miami.

Roads were all but empty as high waves lashed the coastline of Orissa state, which will bear the brunt of Cyclone Phailin.

By midafternoon, wind gusts were so strong that they could blow over grown men. Along the coast, seawater was pushing inland, swamping villages where many people survive as subsistence farmers in mud and thatch huts.

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