Tropical cyclones formed over the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal can wreak havoc on the low-lying areas, home to millions, of India’s coast
Cyclone Fani roared ashore in eastern India on Friday, battering densely-populated Odisha state with 125-mile-per-hour winds and rain before weakening slightly and taking aim at the sprawling metropolis of Kolkata. A herculean evacuation effort in recent days saw more than 1 million people flee the low-lying coastal areas, but officials said the storm still left at least two people dead as it came ashore.
Odisha state disaster relief coordinator Bishnupada Sethi confirmed the early death toll to French news agency AFP, saying one man died of a heart attack in a shelter and a second “went out in the storm despite our warnings and died because a tree fell on him.”
The India Meteorological Department said the “extremely severe” cyclone struck Odisha at about 8 a.m. on Friday morning, by which time 1.2 million people had been evacuated to higher ground.
It was downgraded later Friday from “extremely severe” to “very severe,” and the Meteorological Department said it was forecast to weaken further into a “severe” cyclone as it moved northeast toward Kolkata.
