India orders evacuations as cyclone looms

KAKINADA: Indian authorities ordered nearly 100,000 people to evacuate homes in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, ahead of a severe cyclone the national weather office expects to make landfall by Wednesday. Neighbouring Nepal and Sri Lanka have also issued weather warnings. Cyclone Arnab is forecast to hit India's southwestern Andhra Pradesh coast as a 'very severe cyclonic storm', with gusts of up to 150 kilometres per hour on Wednesday morning at 6:00 am GMT, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in a bulletin. Torrential rain lashed the coast in the port city of Kakinda as heavy waves crashed on shore.
Cyclones, called hurricanes in the North Atlantic and typhoons in the Pacific, are a regular menace in the Bay of Bengal and northern Indian Ocean.
The storm season, however, has been turbocharged by the El Nino weather phenomenon that has caused unprecedented warming. Neighbouring Sri Lanka, meanwhile, closed schools with warnings of torrential rain, with the island's Department of Meteorology warning storms could trigger flash floods and mudslides.
The military has been placed on alert, Colombo's Disaster Management Centre said. Indian media reported that as many as 50,000 people have been told to move to safe areas in Andhra Pradesh, and 48,000 in Odisha. — AFP