Cyclone 'Hudhud' likely to hit Andhra, Odisha coasts tomorrow

With Cyclone 'Hudhud' expected to hit the Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coasts by tomorrow, state authorities today evacuated thousands of people in vulnerable areas to safer places.
The cyclone is expected to make a landfall near Visakhapatnam by tomorrow afternoon, a senior official said, adding, about 1.11 lakh people in five coastal districts have been shifted to safer places.
The Andhra government has made arrangements to evacuate 5,14,725 people in all, officials said, while the Army and the Navy have kept their personnel on stand-by for rescue and relief operations.
According to the reports received by the state Disaster Management Commissioner A R Sukumar, 35,000 persons have been evacuated in Srikakulam district, 6,000 in Vizianagaram, 15,000 in Visakhapatnam, 50,000 in East Godavari and 5,000 in the West Godavari district.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has been reviewing the situation with top officials and requested ISRO to provide satellite images of Hudhud's course.
In all, 436 villages across 64 mandals in the five districts have been identified as exposed to the threat of cyclone. The government has identified 370 relief camps for the evacuated people in these districts.

In Odisha, the state government today began evacuating people from vulnerable areas to minimise casualties even as two flights and 39 trains on the route were cancelled.
"The collectors of eight districts - Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Rayagada, Gajapati, Ganjam, Kalahandi and Kandhamal have been on the job to shift people from vulnerable areas to safe places," Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) P K Mohapatra said.

Rains have been reported from some areas, mostly in the southern region but there was no report of any major damage so far, sources in the SRC said.
In Delhi, New Delhi, a Indian Meteorological Department bulletin said heavy to very heavy rainfall is expected in the next 48 hours in parts of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha as 'Hudhud', which has developed into a very severe cyclone, nears Visakhapatnam and Gopalpur.
It said the cyclone moved west-northwestwards during past six hours and lay centred about 260 km southeast of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and 350 km south-southeast of Gopalpur in Odisha.

"The system would move northwestwards and cross north Andhra Pradesh coast around Visakhapatnam by the forenoon of October 12," it said.