Cyclone Fani: A baby born in Odisha's capital Bhubaneswar was named after the storm.
A baby who shared her birth in Bhubaneswar this morning with the landfall of Cyclone Fani off the coast of Odisha will share its name too. A 32-year-old woman gave birth to the baby girl at the Railway Hospital at 11:03 am and decided to name the baby Fani after the cyclone, news agency ANI reported.
The woman is a railways employee and works as a helper at Coach Repair Workshop, Mancheswar, ANI said. Both the mother and child are fine, doctors have said.
Three people have died as Cyclone Fani barrelled into Odisha this morning, uprooting trees and electricity poles, and cut off power supply in many parts of the state.
Large areas in the temple town of Puri and other places were submerged as heavy rain battered the coast, according to officials.
The cyclonic storm - the strongest cyclone in India in 20 years - is weakening gradually, moving towards West Bengal.
Cyclone Fani made landfall off the coast of Odisha on Friday morning.
The Odisha government has evacuated over 11 lakh people, including at least 600 pregnant women, to camps on higher grounds.
"I assure the affected people that the nation and the centre are with them," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a rally in Rajasthan. He said over Rs 1,000 crore had been released in advance for the states affected by Cyclone Fani.
In the past, several newborns, born during such storms, have been named after the disasters. Last year, after Cyclone Titli battered Odisha, several parents named their newborn daughters, born before or during the severe storm, "Titli".
In 2016, parents of newborns in relief camps of flood-swamped Bihar had named their children after the river Ganga or even the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) that came to their help. In the state's Bhojpur district, a child was named "NDRF Singh" because of the help extended by the rescuers. Other names were inspired by the flooded Ganga river, including "Namami Gange" - the national mission to clean the holy river.