A "very severe" cyclone is barrelling towards southeast India, forcing the evacuation of villagers and fishermen, just a month after a killer storm triggered another massive rescue effort.
Cyclone Lehar, packing sustained winds of up to 165 kilometres an hour, is expected to make landfall in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh late on Thursday, accompanied by storm surges of up to three metres, authorities said.
More than 1,000 rescue workers were deployed in the flood zone on Wednesday as the state began trying to move 250,000 people to safer places, the state disaster management authority said.
The Indian weather office categorised the cyclone as "very severe" and warned of disruption of power and communication lines as well as rail and road traffic.
It added there was a threat of flying debris, flooding of escape routes and extensive damage to crops.
But Lehar, meaning "wave", was expected to be less serious than Cyclone Phailin which slammed into the coast further to the north in October, killing 18 and leaving a trail of destruction.
Phailin, which was also classed as "very severe", had sustained winds of over 200 kilometres an hour that uprooted trees, overturned trucks, snapped power lines and damaged crops in Andhra Pradesh and its northern neighbour, Orissa.
The most powerful storms which strike India at this time of year are classified as "super-cyclones" followed by "very severe" and then "severe".
Cyclone Lehar comes just a week after Cyclone Helen - a "severe" storm - killed eight people and destroyed large tracts of farmland in Andhra Pradesh.
In 1999 more than 8,000 people were killed when a cyclone hit Orissa, which took years to recover.
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