Cyclone Phailin pummels India, half a million evacuated

BHUBANESWAR, India, Oct 12, (AFP) - A cyclone packing winds of up to 200 kilometres an hour made landfall in India today after authorities evacuated more than half a million people from along the rain-lashed east coast.

Cyclone Phailin barrelled into the impoverished states of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa shortly after 9: 00pm ( 1530 GMT) and would continue to wreak havoc along a 150- kilometre stretch ( around 95 miles) of coastline for the next six hours, the country's meteorology service said.

“Very severe cyclone Phailin has just started crossing the coast near Gopalpur” in Orissa, L. S. Rathore, the director general of the Indian Meteorological Office, told reporters.

“The reported wind speed is 200 kph.” Rathore said that Phailin would remain “a very serious cyclonic storm” for another six hours before losing its power.

“Landfall has started happening, the eye is moving at 10 to 15 kph.”

Even before the cyclone made landfall, strong winds had torn away trees and ripped through flimsy homes.

At one stage, the storm packed gusts of up to 240 kilometres per hour as it churned over the Bay of Bengal, making it the most powerful cyclone to hit the area since 1999, when more than 8,000 died, the Indian weather office said.

Authorities said they expected threemetre ( 10- foot) storm surges, with torrential rain also threatening floods in low- lying areas in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.

“I dread this Phailin. It's as if the world is coming to an end,” 23- year- old student engineer Apurva Abhijeeta told AFP from the coastal town of Puri, 70 kilometres from Orissa's state capital Bhubaneswar.

Heavy waves pounded the coast as terrified locals made their way to solid buildings, cramming into packed rickshaws and buses as they travelled. Relief efforts were under way, with free food being served in shelters.

Food stockpiling began earlier in the week as Phailin gathered strength dramatically, with many shops stripped bare.

“Everyone's in trouble so I've kept my shop open to help them,” said shopkeeper Susil Kumar Singh, the owner of one of the few stores still operating in Bhubaneswar.

“The storm's going to get really heavy soon. Right now, there's no drinking water and trees are falling down all around.” Further south in Visakhapatnam, fishermen frantically sought to secure their boats while farmers tethered their livestock in the afternoon. Others watched the rough surf as wave after wave crashed into the shore.