Cyclone Fani: The short video showed trees swaying wildly in the roaring winds and rain.
Highlights
- Cyclone Fani hit the Odisha coast around 8 am today
- Heavy rain battered the entire coastal belt of Odisha
- Several trees were uprooted and thatched houses destroyed
Cyclone Fani hit the Odisha coast this morning with gusting winds and heavy rain. The impact of the Category 4 storm started around 8 am, said the Indian Meteorological Department.
The Press Information Bureau posted a video to show the sheer impact of Cyclone Fani's landfall at Puri.
"The sound and the fury: here's what the landfall at Puri by #CycloneFani actually looked like," tweeted the government's press arm.
The short video showed trees swaying wildly in the roaring winds and rain.
According to the met department, the winds hit the coast at a speed of 150 to 175 km per hour and even higher at some places. The eye of the cyclone was of 30 km diameter.
Large areas in the seaside pilgrim town of Puri and other places were submerged as heavy rains battered the coast, according to officials.
Several trees were uprooted and thatched structures destroyed at some places including Bhubaneswar.
The already rough sea in Puri became turbulent when landfall sarted. More than 11 lakh people have been evacuated from coastal areas in the last 24 hours. Even the calm sea in Chandipur is violent, officials said.
The Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and disaster management agencies are on stand-by.
Cyclone Fani is the strongest cyclonic storm since the Super Cyclone of 1999, which claimed left nearly 10,000 dead and devastated Odisha. The Meteorological Department says it is the first cyclonic storm of such severity in April in India's oceanic neighbourhood in 43 years.