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29 March 2024

Super Cyclone Hudhud leaves atleast 5 dead

Published
By Agencies

UPDATE: Cyclone Hudhud blasted India's eastern seaboard on Sunday with gusts of up to 195 km per hour (over 120 mph), uprooting trees, damaging buildings and killing at least five people despite a major evacuation effort.

The port city of Visakhapatnam, home to two 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 on Monday. "We are mobilising men and material immediately."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Naidu and promised "all possible assistance in relief and rescue operations", his central government said in a statement.

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. Forecasters warned Hudhud would blow strongly for several hours more, before wind speeds halve in the evening.

"Reverse windflow will be experienced by the city, which will again have a very great damage potential," L.S. Rathore, director-general of the state India Meteorological Department (IMD), told reporters in New Delhi.

The IMD forecast a storm surge of one to two metres (three to six feet) above high tide that could result in flooding of low-lying coastal areas around Visakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram and Srikakulam.

Terrifying wind

A Reuters reporter in Visakhapatnam said the storm had smashed his hotel's windows and flooded the ground floor. It was difficult even to open the door of his room, he said, as wind rushing through the corridors drove it shut again.

"I never imagined that a cyclone could be so dangerous and devastating," said one businessman who was staying in the hotel. "The noise it is making would terrify anyone."

An operations centre 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 its head saying that 17 ships which had been in the harbour were moving offshore where they would be less at risk from high seas. The city airport was closed and train services suspended.

The IMD rated Hudhud as a very severe cyclonic storm that could pack gusts of 195 kph and dump more than 24.5 cm (10 inches) of rain.

The cyclone was strong enough to have a "high humanitarian impact" on nearly 11 million people, the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS), run by the United Nations and the European Commission, said.

The evacuation effort was comparable to one preceding Cyclone Phailin, credited with minimising fatalities to 53. When a huge storm hit the same area 15 years ago, 10,000 people died.

Hudhud was likely to batter a 200-300 km stretch of coastline before losing force as it moves inland, forecasters said.

According to the IMD, peak wind speeds will drop to 60 kph by Monday afternoon. Hudhud is expected to continue to dump heavy rains in northern and northeastern India and, eventually, snow when it reaches the Himalayan mountains.

Cyclone Hudhud blasted India's eastern seaboard on Sunday with gusts of up to 195km an, uprooting trees, damaging buildings and killing at least three people despite a major evacuation effort. The port city of Visakhapatnam, home to two 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. Upended trees and wreckage were strewn across Visakhapatnam. Most people heeded warnings to take refuge, but three who ventured out were killed.

- At least three people were killed Sunday when Cyclone Hudhud slammed into India's east coast packing winds of almost 200 kilometres (125 miles) per hour, ripping down power cables and forcing roads and railways to shut.

- Storm related rains kill 2 in Vishakapatnam and Srikakulam, Indian daily Times of India reports.

- Twitter is seeing a surge if pictures from the affected areas as users expect mobiles to go on the blink anytime now.


Residents of affected areas are tweeting pics before their mobiles run out of power. (Capt_Ck @ twitter)

Cyclone Hudhud, packing gusts of up to 195 kilometres an hour (over 120 mph), has reached peak strength and caused extensive damage to India's eastern seaboard on Sunday morning. "Hundreds of trees have been uprooted and power lines knocked down," K. Hymavathi, the special commissioner for disaster management for Andhra Pradesh state, told Reuters by telephone.

India on Saturday began evacuating thousands of people from fishing villages as it braced for Cyclone Hudhud barrelling towards its east coast, officials said. "We are ready to evacuate 400,000 people, but that will depend on the amount of rainfall and how it affects low-lying areas," said Arvind Kumar, an senior official from Andhra Pradesh, overseeing the relief efforts.


Fishermen walk along the shore at Ganjam district in the eastern Indian state of Odisha October 11, 2014. (REUTERS)

But some among the tribal group which numbers a total of 7,000 were reluctant to move as they had never left the area, the Press Trust of India (PTI) said.

Orissa legislature member Dambaru Sisa, who belongs to the Bonda tribal community, told PTI he had been trying to convince the tribal group to leave for safer ground.

"Many of them are reluctant to leave their huts. The identified 2,000 tribal people (who must move) have never come down the hills in their lifetime," said Sisa.

Disaster response teams and defences forces are ready with manpower, rescue equipment and choppers to deal with the impact of the cyclone.  


Fishermen move a fishing boat to a safer place along the shore ahead of cyclone Hudhud at Ganjam district in the eastern Indian state of Odisha (REUTERS)

150,000 evacuated

About 150,000 people were evacuated on India's eastern seaboard on Saturday as cyclone Hudhud bore down and grew in sheer force, threatening to devastate farmland and fishing villages when it hits the coast on Sunday morning.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) rated Hudhud as a very severe cyclonic storm that could pack gusts of 195 km/h (over 120 mph) and dump more than 24.5 cm (10 inches) of rain when it makes landfall.

Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) has issued a Red Tropical Cyclone Alert ahead of cyclone Hudhud stating that up to 7.2 million people can be affected by wind speeds of cyclone strength.

Indian government has made arrangements to evacuate 5,14,725 people in all – Times of India.


Indian fisherman dock their fishing boats to a jetty in Chennai, India, Friday, Oct.10 2014. An alert was sounded to the fishermen as cyclone "Hudhud" is expected to cross the Bay of Bengal coast, according to local reports. (AP)

#CycloneHudhud Odisha begins evacuation; two flights, 39 trains cancelled - Indian Express

Indian authorities were setting up relief camps and stockpiling food Friday as they braced for a "severe cyclone" due to slam into the country's east coast this weekend.

Cyclone Hudhud, building over the Bay of Bengal, was set to make landfall at Visakhapatnam on Andhra Pradesh state coast by midday Sunday, the Indian Meterological Department said.

"We've already set up rescue camps and arranged for food and other necessities," Parakala Prabhakar, communication advisor to the Andhra Pradesh government, told AFP by telephone from Hyderabad.

Packing winds of up to 155 kilometres per hour (96 miles), Hudhud was expected to also smash into neighbouring Orissa where Cyclone Phailin last October killed at least 18 and left a massive trail of destruction.

The navy said in a statement it has "assumed a high degree of readiness" as "the severe cyclone Hudhud is poised to strike".

Naval ships are standing by equipped with "divers, doctors, inflatable rubber boats, integral helicopters and relief material," the statement said.

Hudhud could cause widespread damage to flimsy housing and other structures and disrupt power and communications in low-lying coastal areas.

India has two categories of tropical storms based on wind speeds. Cyclones like Hudhud have wind speeds up to 167 kph.

The second, like Cylone Phailin, has winds of up to 220 kph and is capable of causing extensive damage.

Disaster officials in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa said they were not taking any chances and were fully prepared for whatever happens.

"A special relief commissioner has already been appointed to look into prevention, rescue and rehabilitation in north coastal Andhra Pradesh," Prabhakar said.

In Orissa, where more than 8,000 people were killed in a 1999 cyclone, the state government was set to conduct a mock evacuation drill on Saturday.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has also asked federal Defence Minister Arun Jaitley for the army to be deployed in four districts likely to suffer from  the storm.

Residents in Orissa's Ganjam district, which bore the brunt of the 2013 cyclone, were dreading a repeat of the devastation.

"We have made all the arrangements this time because of the scale of devastation that we saw in 2013 and 1999," Prabhat Ranjan Mahapatra, the deputy relief commissioner of Orissa, told AFP.

The weather office has urged fishermen to stay ashore until the storm is over.

India's eastern coast and neighbouring Bangladesh are routinely hit by bad storms between April and November that cause deaths and widespread damage to property.