Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated parts of India’s eastern coast Thursday as a powerful cyclone moved north, bringing fears of widespread destruction in the coming hours.
Cyclone Fani was expected to hit the coast Friday with heavy rain, powerful winds and storm surge in some low-lying areas. More than 100 million people are potentially in the path of the storm, AccuWeather reported.
The India Meteorological Department classified Fani as an “extremely severe cyclonic storm,” the equivalent of a Category 3 or 4 hurricane, and said it would land with sustained winds of more than 100 miles per hour and gusts of up to 120 m.p.h.
Population density
CHINA
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people
New Delhi
NEPAL
BHUTAN
Forecasted
path
Dhaka
INDIA
Kolkata
BANGLADESH
Areas exposed
to strong wind
May 3
5:30 p.m.
May 2
5:30 p.m.
Hyderabad
Bay of Bengal
Wind radius
by speed
34 knots
Bengaluru
50
Observed path
64
Population density
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people
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people
CHINA
NEPAL
BHUTAN
INDIA
Forecasted
path
Dhaka
Areas exposed
to strong wind
Kolkata
BANGLADESH
May 3
5:30 p.m.
May 2
5:30 p.m.
Hyderabad
Bay of Bengal
Wind radius
by speed
34 knots
Observed path
50
64
Population density
Fewer
people
More
people
CHINA
New Delhi
NEPAL
BHUTAN
INDIA
Forecasted
path
Dhaka
Kolkata
BANGLADESH
Areas exposed
to strong wind
May 3
5:30 p.m.
May 2
5:30 p.m.
Hyderabad
Bay of Bengal
Wind radius
by speed
34 knots
Bengaluru
50
Observed path
64
As much as eight inches of rain is forecast to fall on northern parts of the state of Andhra Pradesh and on the state of Odisha. The storm is expected to continue north, hitting the neighboring countries of Bangladesh and Bhutan, as well as parts of the Indian states of West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya.
“I appeal to everyone that the children, women, old and disabled be evacuated first,” Naveen Patnaik, chief minister of Odisha, said Wednesday, Indian media reported. “All precautions have been taken to face the cyclone. We are fully prepared to tackle the cyclone Fani.”
Mr. Patnaik said that about 800,000 people were expected to be moved to safer places by Thursday evening.
The Bay of Bengal has experienced many of the world’s deadliest tropical cyclones, the result of warm air and water temperatures producing storms that strike the large populations along the coast.
A cyclone in 1999 killed more than 10,000 people, most of them in Odisha, where it lingered for more than a day, flooding villages and coastal areas and blowing apart bridges and houses.
The state was much better prepared for Cyclone Phailin in 2013, the most powerful storm to hit the Indian coast since 1999. After the cyclone 20 years ago, Odisha set up a disaster management agency and invested in building shelters, strengthening coastal embankments and preparing evacuation routes, according to a World Bank report.
In 2013, about one million people were evacuated, more than twice as many as in 1999. The storm killed 45 people, and preparations helped avoid greater casualties, the World Bank said.
“All of these efforts bore fruit when Cyclone Phailin made landfall,” the report said.
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