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Cyclone Arnab leaves 3 dead, 764 villages hit in Andhra; flash-flood alert for 13 districts
Cyclone Arnab weakened to a severe cyclonic storm at landfall but left three dead, 31 houses damaged and 764 villages affected in Andhra Pradesh, with over 200 mm of rain in places. A flash-flood warning covers 13 districts until Thursday morning. Chief Minister Naidu sought central help.
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Cyclone Arnab weakened from a very severe cyclonic storm to a severe cyclonic storm before it crossed the coast of Andhra Pradesh and Yanam on Wednesday, 28 October, but it still killed three people in the state, damaged houses and roads and left several areas without electricity. The National Disaster Response Force said that 764 villages in Andhra Pradesh had been affected by Wednesday morning. The India Meteorological Department has issued a flash-flood warning for 13 districts and Yanam until 5:30 am on Thursday.
The three deaths
Officials reported three deaths in the state. Chokka Kishore Kumar, 46, was hit by a falling tree in Bhimavaram in West Godavari district at about 12:30 am and was declared dead on arrival at hospital. A 53-year-old man in Visakhapatnam district died after touching a snapped live wire on Tuesday night, and a 55-year-old woman died at Yellamanchili in Anakapalli district after stepping on an exposed wire outside her home on Wednesday morning. Rambabu, a newspaper delivery worker, suffered a serious head injury when an electric pole fell on his moped in Bhimavaram, and he is in an intensive care unit.
The damage
Thirty-one houses were reported damaged. Trees and electricity poles were uprooted and roads were damaged. In Kakinada, hundreds of trees and fewer than 100 electric poles were brought down, and the coastal road at Uppada was washed away. An old bridge at Tadiguda village in Alluri Sitarama Raju district collapsed and cut off a hamlet. A report earlier in the day also mentioned that a vessel carrying sulphur ran aground near Antarvedi during the cyclone.
Rainfall exceeded 200 mm at several places on the coast. Kannuripalem in Anakapalli district recorded 261.5 mm between 8:30 am on Tuesday and 4 am on Wednesday. In the 24 hours to 8:30 am on Wednesday, Andhra Pradesh had extremely heavy rain and Odisha had very heavy to extremely heavy rain.
Warnings that remain
The weather office's flash-flood warning, rated moderate to high risk, covers Bapatla, Guntur, NTR, Krishna, Eluru, East Godavari, Kakinada, Alluri Sitarama Raju, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Anakapalli, Parvathipuram Manyam and West Godavari districts, along with Yanam. It warns of surface runoff and flooding in soil that is already saturated and in low-lying areas.
A storm surge warning covers the north Andhra coast and much of the Odisha coast from 11:30 am on Wednesday to 5:30 am on Thursday, with gale-force winds of up to 120 kmph. Squally weather with winds of 50 kmph and gusts of 60 kmph is expected on the coasts of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal and on the northern Tamil Nadu coast from 29 to 30 October. Thunderstorms are expected over coastal Andhra Pradesh and Yanam from 30 October to 3 November, with heavy rain at isolated places on 1, 2 and 3 November.
The cyclone was expected to weaken into a deep depression by the evening as it moved across southern Odisha toward Chhattisgarh, and it may affect Jharkhand.
About 57,000 people were moved to relief camps in Andhra Pradesh, including 38 in Yanam. The figure is lower than the number of people moved earlier in the week, which was given as more than 84,000 in some reports, because the counts used different definitions. Pregnant women were moved to hospitals, and women, children and older people were given priority. Teams used historical data to find low-lying areas, and removed billboards and boats from vulnerable places.
The National Disaster Response Force has 39 teams deployed in Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and nearby regions, and the state disaster force has 80 teams in Andhra Pradesh. The Indian Air Force flew two sorties on Tuesday night to bring four more response teams to the state. The force's inspector general, Narendra Singh Bundela, said that Andhra Pradesh was the most affected, and that the worst-hit districts were Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Anakapalli and Srikakulam.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu ordered that blocked roads be cleared within two hours and that power be restored once the winds eased. He asked for medical care, food and drinking water at shelters, and for farmland to be protected from flooding. He wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and followed it up with a phone call, giving details of the damage and asking for teams from the Centre to assess losses to crops, houses, roads and power poles.
In Odisha, the heaviest rain was in Koraput, Ganjam and Gajapati districts. More than 30,000 people were evacuated, and six southern districts are under a red alert for heavy to extremely heavy rain. The state has 2,037 cyclone shelters and 313 response teams. Disaster Management Minister Suresh Pujari said that the state's main goal is zero casualties. The reports give no figures for deaths or damage in Odisha.
The toll and the damage figures are early and may change as assessments are completed.
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