16 killed, 100 missing as storm hits India, Lanka
new delhi — A powerful cyclone has killed at least 16 people across India and Sri Lanka, uprooting trees and cutting power for millions amid warnings on Friday that the storm would intensify.
Disaster officials said nine people were killed in India and seven in neighbouring Sri Lanka, most crushed by trees ripped up by destructive winds raging at 130 kilometres per hour.
Warships have been deployed to comb the southeastern coast for fishing boats missing in wild seas, India’s Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.
Another official said an estimated 100 crew were aboard the missing vessels, with fears held for their safety.
Five ships had been sent to the southern Kerala coast on Thursday by the Navy after reports emerged that several fishermen who had put out to sea in choppy waters were yet to return. Torrential wind and rain unleashed by Cyclone Ockhi has shut down schools in Chennai, a coastal Indian city of seven million where conditions are set to worsen.
The weather department said Kanyakumari, Tuticorin and Tirunelveli districts in Tamil Nadu received rains for the third day on Friday though the cyclone threat mitigated as the system, lying 70 kms south of Kanyakumari on Thursday, moved to the Arabian sea.
“Ockhi cyclone intensified into severe cyclone and lies at about 110 km northeast of Minicoy (island) and it is likely to cross Lakshadweep arch during the next 24 hours,” the India Meteorological Department said in a bulletin this morning. Images broadcast from southern India showed the scale of the destruction as the cyclone reached the shore, with electricity poles toppled and trees torn asunder. Tourists in Kochi, a coastal city in the southern Kerala state, have been told to stay away from popular beaches where huge waves are pounding the shore.
Power was cut for millions in Kerala and neighbouring Tamil Nadu state as the storm made its way from Sri Lanka, with India’s meteorological department warning of worse to come.
“The system is very likely to intensify further during next 24 hours,” the department said in its update. — AFP, PTI