Cyclone Fani: 2 dead in Odisha as severe storm batters coastal districts

As many as two persons died in Odisha during cyclone Fani on Friday. Fani made a landfall at Odisha's Puri at speeds of up to 200 kilometres (125 miles) per hour. "I can confirm two deaths for now. One old man in one of the shelters died because of (a) heart attack. Another person went out in the storm despite our warnings and died because a tree fell on him," Odisha state special relief commissioner Bishnupada Sethi told mediapersons.

Cyclone Fani hit the Odisha coast at around 8 am with powerful winds of 145 kilometres per hour on Friday. Mritunjay Mohapatra, in-charge of the Cyclone Warning Division of the India Meteorological Department, said the process of landfall will continue for the next three hours. The area along Puri is witnessing winds with a speed of 145 kilometres per hour that could reach up to 180-200 kmph, which could bring an "extensive damage", he said. A cyclone making a landfall implies that the first arm of the cyclone has reached the land. The eye of the cyclone, which is calm, is nearly 30 kilometres.

The Press Information Bureau took to Twitter and shared a terrifying video that captured the exact moment of the landfall. It showed gusting winds with thundershowers.

 

The sound and the fury : here's what the landfall at Puri by #CycloneFani actually looked like..

Video by @PIBBhubaneswar pic.twitter.com/4GpvKFkRQ3

— PIB India (@PIB_India) May 3, 2019

As part of the massive evacuation plan, the Odisha government moved hundreds of thousands of people to safer locations. Fani is the most severe cyclonic storm since the super cyclone of 1999 that claimed close to 10,000 lives and left a trail of destruction in vast swathes of the state, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JWTC).