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Killer cyclone wreaks havoc in India

As many as seven people are dead after Cyclone Phailin tore through India's east coast, leaving a trail of destruction.

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Source: AAP


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Cyclone Phailin has ripped through India's east coast, leaving a trail of destruction and as many as seven people dead after one of the biggest evacuations in India's history.

As emergency teams began assessing the damage from the country's worst cyclone in 14 years, a massive relief effort came into full swing on Sunday to distribute food, clear roads and help the injured.

The worst affected area around the town of Gopalpur, where winds of 200km/h came ashore, remained cut off.

Elsewhere, roofs were blown off, trees fell across roads and debris was strewn over the streets of state capital Bhubaneswar, where the winds had died down and heavy overnight rainfall had ceased.

"Our teams have fanned out on the ground, they are running searches, trying to check if there have been any casualties, check the extent of the damage," Sandeep Rai Rathore, inspector general of the army's National Disaster Response Force told AFP.

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Orissa state relief commissioner Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra told AFP that three people had been confirmed dead, while other estimates put the toll at seven.

"We almost cleared out the danger zone. In the end, we cleared more than 8.61 lakh (861,000) people. It might be India's biggest evacuation ever," Mohapatra added to AFP.

With another 100,000 people in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh state evacuated on Saturday, the total figure is likely to be more than a million.

Local member of parliament for Orissa Jay Panda told local television that seven people had been killed.

"Casualties figures will change as information comes in from remote parts there are quite a few places which are cut off from communications," he told NDTV television.

The number of dead appeared to be "significantly lower than what it could have been" because of the mobilisation of emergency efforts before the storm stuck, he said.

The Indian weather office said that cyclone Phailin had weakened significantly after it moved inland, but warned it still posed a danger, particularly from flooding.


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