Visakhapatnam will be hit the hardest by Cyclone Hudhud
After a brief lull as the eye of Cyclone Hudhud crossed over Visakhapatnam, heavy rain and strong winds are again battering the coastal district of Andhra Pradesh with the tail now passing over it.
The Indian Meteorological Department or IMD said after landfall that this phase of the cyclone would bring with it "great damage potential." Relief and rescue operations in Visakhapatnam, also called Vizag, would be critical in the next few hours, IMD official LS Rathore said at a press conference.
Hudhud hit coast with a wind speed of about 170-180 kmph, gusting to 195 kmph. The official said by 6 this evening, the cyclone would lose wind speed by half and in 12 hours, it would become a depression.
The Met department assesses that air traffic in the region should resume by Monday morning as the wind speeds would have diminished considerably by then. Air services have been suspended in the region and many trains have been canceled today.
The Met department has said Vizag will bear the brunt of Hudhud, which will now move north and then north-east. It has rained heavily in the district and in neighbouring coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh all morning and the very heavy rain will continue.
"The Visakhapatnam situation is very serious," K Hymavathi, the special commissioner for disaster management for Andhra Pradesh told Reuters by telephone. "Telecommunications are disrupted - even our control room is not able to operate properly. People staying in their apartments are so afraid that they are panicking and calling us," she said, confirming that Hudhud had made landfall.
Fallen trees and wreckage are strewn across the streets of Vizag. Three people were killed. One of them was killed when a tree fell on him while the second died when a wall collapsed.
More than 300,000 people have been evacuated to safer areas.
The Met office said there will also be heavy rain over the next few days in coastal districts of south Odisha and in parts of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.