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Cyclone Murasu crosses Andhra coast near Ongole: trees, poles down in Prakasam, Bapatla; no deaths reported
Severe Cyclonic Storm Murasu crossed the south Andhra coast near Ongole early on 3 November with 100–110 km/h winds, gusting to 120. Thousands of trees and hundreds of poles fell in Prakasam and Bapatla, boats were wrecked and crops flooded. No deaths are reported; about 30,000 people were moved.
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Severe Cyclonic Storm Murasu crossed the south Andhra Pradesh coast near Ongole in the early hours of Tuesday, 3 November, bringing winds of 100 to 110 km/h, gusting to 120 km/h, and heavy rain to the coastal districts. The India Meteorological Department said the storm crossed between Nellore and Narasapur, close to Ongole, between 3:30 and 5:30 am. One international report puts the landfall at about 1 am, so the timing differs between accounts. The state disaster management authority said that no deaths or injuries had been reported so far. The storm is the second severe cyclone to hit the same coastline in a week.
The damage so far
The worst of the damage was reported from Prakasam and Bapatla districts. Thousands of trees were uprooted and hundreds of electricity poles were damaged, fishing boats were wrecked, and standing crops were hit, with many areas under water. Local reports describe storm surges in Bapatla, Prakasam and Krishna districts, and residents of Ongole mandal said the sea had pushed inland, which is based on local accounts and not on confirmed figures. A resident of Kothapatnam in Prakasam district said one of her three boats had been destroyed completely. Poor visibility from heavy rain and gusty winds stranded vehicles on national highways and left commuters stuck at several places.
The reports do not give a count of damaged houses, a figure for crop losses in hectares or in rupees, or the number of homes without power. Before landfall the Chief Minister's office had estimated that up to 8,000 electricity poles in South Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema could be affected, and a later preliminary estimate put the damage at about 15,128 poles across 12 districts. Those were forecasts, and the actual figures will come from the power utilities' damage assessment.
Evacuations and the response
Evacuations began on Monday, and officials planned to move about 30,000 people to safety. A fisherman said about 400 families from his village of Kothapatnam had been moved out before the storm, and National Disaster Response Force teams helped shift people to safer places. In Prakasam the administration had identified seven coastal mandals and 26 vulnerable villages, with about 70 habitations that could be affected, and moved vulnerable residents to cyclone centres. The Nellore collector asked residents to stay indoors and opened cyclone shelters.
Andhra Pradesh had six NDRF and seven State Disaster Response Force teams ready, and three more NDRF teams with 90 personnel were sent from Arakkonam in Tamil Nadu to Nellore, Prakasam and Markapuram. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu cancelled a visit to Delhi, ordered a cyclone bulletin every four hours, asked telecom operators to take precautions and set a target of restoring power within 48 hours of damage. Karnataka said it was sending 500 skilled power workers to help. Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the Centre would provide assistance, with national and state disaster response teams on the ground.
The storm disrupted travel. At least 19 domestic flights were cancelled on Monday at Vijayawada, Tirupati and Visakhapatnam, 12 of them at Vijayawada, and Chennai airport cancelled 11 flights as a precaution. South Coast Railway cancelled nine trains. Schools and colleges were shut in Chennai and Tiruvallur and in several Andhra districts. The storm also disrupted the state's municipal election count, since counting in Ongole and Chirala was postponed because of the cyclone and the heavy rain.
Odisha, Tamil Nadu and what comes next
The storm landed in Andhra Pradesh, but its effects were felt across the region. Odisha's southern districts were forecast winds of 50 to 60 km/h, gusting to 70, on 3 November. The state had moved more than 1.60 lakh people to safety in five southern districts by Monday evening and planned to evacuate 3.33 lakh before 10 pm, with 1,51,434 evacuated in Ganjam alone and 1,139 shelters with room for 3,41,700 people prepared. Odisha pre-positioned more than 300 rescue teams and was drawing down its medium reservoirs ahead of the rain. Chennai was under an orange alert, with the Parrys area recording 149.2 mm of rain in 24 hours to Monday morning, and two of the city's 22 subways had minor waterlogging. Northern Tamil Nadu districts could see winds of 60 to 70 km/h.
The meteorological department expected the storm to weaken into a cyclonic storm by noon on Tuesday, with winds of 80 to 90 km/h, and to become a deep depression by midnight. In coastal Andhra Pradesh, light to moderate rain was expected at most places, heavy to very heavy showers at a few and extremely heavy rain at isolated places, with a storm surge of 1 to 1.5 metres forecast for Bapatla, Guntur, Krishna and Prakasam.
Cyclone Arnab, a very severe cyclonic storm, made landfall on 28 October further north on the same coast, with winds of 125 to 135 km/h. Reports of its death toll differ, from seven in earlier counts to nine in Andhra Pradesh in a later one, and Odisha's relief commissioner reported a toll of six there, with 10 people missing. The loss in Andhra Pradesh from Arnab was estimated at about Rs 4,600 crore, and more than 1.8 lakh people were evacuated across the two states.
The reports also describe Murasu as likely to leave a lighter overall impact than Arnab, though that is a state assessment made before the full damage was known. The immediate priorities are restoring power and roads, clearing fallen trees from highways and surveying crop and boat losses, while the districts that have just been battered face further rain through Wednesday.
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