Tropical Cyclone Hudhud came ashore near the city of Visakhapatnam early Sunday morning eastern time, packing maximum sustained winds winds of 125 miles per hour, along with heavy rains and a storm surge of up to 6.6 feet along the coast.
The storm has killed at least five people, according to Reuters, and caused extensive building and crop damage. The numbers of storm victims are likely to rise as the scope and severity of damage becomes more clear.
Storm surge, the buildup of water caused by the storm's winds and extraordinarily low atmospheric pressure, along with features of the coastline, has historically been the biggest cause of storm-related deaths in the Bay of Bengal.
The eye of the storm made a direct hit on Visakhapatnam, which is home to a large Indian Navy Base.
Final radar image collected from #Visakhapatnam as #Hudhud made landfall on the major city hours ago. Not good. pic.twitter.com/mQ8uqBLuLR— Brian McNoldy (@BMcNoldy) October 12, 2014
As the storm intensified over the Bay of Bengal on Friday and Saturday, India mobilized a massive evacuation of the most at-risk residents from the states of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. These evacuations were on a scale not seen since Cyclone Phailin struck the same area last year. That storm killed 45 people.
Television footage from Visakhapatnam showed downed electrical poles, uprooted trees and massive debris strewn in the streets. Electricity lines were disconnected in parts of Andhra Pradesh to avoid electrocutions, said Arvind Kumar, a relief and rescue official. Andhra Pradesh's chief minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, said that while the early evacuations had saved lives, the cyclone caused "huge damage" to buildings and crops in the coastal districts.
Now that the storm is inland, it is cut off from the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal, and is weakening. However, it is producing heavy rains as it does so, with flooding likely in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa for the next few days, and the flooding may spread to central and northeastern India as well. But heavy rain was expected to lash Andhra Pradesh and Orissa for another three days. Other parts of central and northeastern India were also expected to see heavy rain.
The Indian Ocean, including the Bay of Bengal, has seen some of the deadliest storms on record, including a cyclone that struck the same region in 1999, killing 10,000 people. Of the 35 deadliest storms in recorded history, 27 have come through the Bay of Bengal — and have landed in either India or Bangladesh. This is because the developing countries bordering the Bay have a growing coastal population and relatively poor disaster preparedness infrastructure. This is changing, however, especially in Bangladesh and India. Global warming-related sea level rise is also adding to the damage potential of these storms, with hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis living at sea level.
Indian officials committed to a "zero casualties" policy ahead of this storm, and authorities set up emergency shelters and prepositioned rescue and recovery assets. Nearly 100,000 people have been moved to storm relief camps due to heavy damage in parts of Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, news reports said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu "all possible assistance" in coping with storm damage and recovery needs, the Times of India reported on Sunday.
The cyclone's name comes from a bird that is found throughout Africa and Eurasia, according to Times of India. It is known as the Hoopoe bird in Israel, where it is the official state bird. The newspaper said the government of Oman nominated Hudhud, which is the Arabic translation of the bird's name, for the list of 2014 storm names. This particular list is managed through the World Meteorological Organization, a U.N. agency, for the broader Indian Ocean Basin.