Severe Cyclonic Storm Murasu made landfall on India’s eastern coast near Ongole, in Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam district, at about 1am local time on Tuesday 3 November, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), as reported by Al Jazeera.
Authorities began evacuations on Monday. Prakhar Jain, managing director of the state disaster management authority, said about 30,000 people were due to be moved to safety, and he told reporters that no deaths or injuries had been reported so far. A fisherman from Kothapatnam said around 400 families from his village had been moved out.
The Press Trust of India reported thousands of trees felled, hundreds of power poles damaged, fishing boats wrecked and crops hit, with low-lying areas under water in Prakasam and Bapatla districts. The IMD warned of heavy to very heavy rain in several districts, including parts of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Odisha. India’s Home Minister Amit Shah said on X that central government help was available and that national and state disaster response teams were already on the ground.
Murasu is the second cyclone to strike the region in a week, following Cyclone Arnab, which caused heavy damage in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
Reporting note: This report relies mainly on one outlet’s summary of IMD, state-official and Press Trust of India statements from 3 November. Damage and casualty figures were early and may have changed since. The photograph is a file satellite image of a different storm, Cyclone Michaung (2023), shown only to illustrate a Bay of Bengal cyclone; it is not Murasu.
Photo: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC / Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
