Live: Severe Cyclone Bites Odisha Leaving Eight Dead

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation restored operations at its fields in Bay of Bengal. While the cyclone made a landfall around Puri, most of ONGC installations are off the Andhra coast.

Sources said that all operations have been restored and employees are being moved by boats to installations. ONGC had six rigs operating off the Andhra coast, four of which were moved away from the path of the severe cyclonic storm earlier this week, sources added, and said that they will be brought back to their locations over the next couple of days.

The company had begun evacuating staff from the rigs as early as on April 27 and had by May 1 completed evacuation of around 500 of them.

Inputs from PTI

Cyclone Fani barrelled through Odisha on Friday, unleashing copious rain and windstorm that gusted up to 175 kmph, killing at least eight people, blowing away thatched houses, and swamping towns and villages, officials said.

Though the 'extremely severe' cyclone unexpectedly weakened into 'very severe' cyclonic storm in a matter of few hours, it left a trail of devastation in large parts of coastal Odisha, with the seaside pilgrim town of Puri being the worst hit.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who reviewed the situation, said Puri district suffered huge damage. "Energy infrastructure has been completely destroyed. Restoration of electricity is a challenging task," he said.

Work is on to restore road communication, thrown into disarray with thousands of uprooted trees blocking the way in innumerable places, Patnaik said

The chief minister said nearly 12 lakh people were evacuated and shifted to safer locations within 24 hours ahead of the cyclone from about 10,000 villages and 52 urban agglomerations in probably the largest such exercise at the time of a natural calamity in the country.

The evacuees have been accommodated in over 4,000 shelters, including 880 specially designed cyclone centres where free cooked food is being served to them, he said.

Inputs from PTI

Bangladesh on Friday evacuated over five lakh people from its southwestern districts as the cyclone, brewing over the Bay of Bengal, is drawing closer and is likely to hit the country late night after ravaging the Indian coastlines.

Rains lashed parts of Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh as a fall out of Cyclone Fani, which hit the Odisha coast Friday, but no human casualties have been reported, officials said.

Nine head of cattle and 12 sheep were killed in rain-related incidents, while over 2,000 electricity poles were uprooted because of high velocity winds and 218 cellular phone towers damaged, they said.

Three people were killed in separate incidents as cyclone Fani battered the Odisha coast on Friday, officials said.

• A teenager was killed when a tree came crashing down on him at a place within Sakhigopal police station area limits in Puri district.
• Flying debris from a concrete structure hit a woman in Nayagarh district when she had gone to fetch water, killing her.
• In Debendranarayanpur village in Kendrapara district, a 65-year-old woman died after suspected heart attack at a cyclone shelter.

Inputs from PTI