October 11, 2013 11:00AM ET
System expected to be fiercest to threaten country since a devastating storm killed 10,000 people in 1999
- Topics:
- India
- Weather
- International
Police signal to beach goers to leave the coast as Cyclone Phailin nears the eastern Indian state of Odisha on Friday. Reuters
Tens of thousands of people fled their homes in coastal areas of eastern India and moved to shelters Friday, bracing for Cyclone Phailin, which is expected to be the fiercest cyclone to threaten the country since a devastating storm killed 10,000 people in the Indian state of Odisha 14 years ago.
Satellite images of the storm showed it 310 miles off India’s coast in the Bay of Bengal. Those images also showed the system covering an area roughly half the size of India. Some forecasters have likened its size and intensity to that of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005.
If the storm continues on its current path without weakening, it is expected to cause large-scale power and communications outages and shut down road and rail links, officials said. There could also be extensive damage to crops.
While there is some disagreement about how strong the storm’s winds will be, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) warned that Phailin, which is expected to hit the coast by Saturday evening, was a “very severe cyclonic storm” that will bring with it maximum sustained winds of 130-135 mph. The IMD also predicted flooding and storm surges of about 10 feet above normal tides.
Other weather centers predicted stronger winds. The U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecasted gusts of up to 196 mph. Also, the London-based storm tracking service Tropical Storm Risk said Phailin was a Category 5 “super cyclone,” evoking memories of the devastating 1999 storm in Odisha when winds reached speeds of 186 mph and battered the state for 30 hours.
This time Odisha’s state government said it was better prepared. It broadcast cyclone warnings through loudspeakers and on radio and television as the first winds were felt on the coast and in the state capital Bhubaneswar.
Large waves were already pounding beaches in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Villagers were evacuated to schools in the north of the state, while panic buying drove up food prices.
Some 260,000 people were moved to safer ground and more were expected to be evacuated by the end of the day, authorities in the two states said.
Not everybody was willing to leave their homes and belongings, and some villagers on the Andhra Pradesh coast said they had not been told to evacuate.
“Of course I’m scared, but where will I move with my family?” asked Kuramayya, 38, a fisherman from the village of Bandharuvanipeta, close to where the storm is expected to make landfall. “We can’t leave our boats behind.”
Wire services
Powerful Cyclone Phailin takes aim at India coast
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