300,000 evacuated as Cyclone Titli batters eastern India

NEW DELHI - A cyclone packing winds of over 125km per hour and heavy rains hit eastern India early Thursday (Oct 11), local media reported, with over 300,000 people evacuated from low-lying areas.

Cyclone Titli, which intensified into a "very severe cyclonic storm" over the Bay of Bengal, made landfall near Gopalpur on India's east coast, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported.

The Odisha state government evacuated more than 300,000 people from five coastal districts on Wednesday while local schools, colleges and childcare centres were ordered closed and fishermen advised not to go out to sea.

"We have already evacuated three lakh (300,000) people and more may be shifted to safer places in view of the very severe cyclone," PTI quoted Odisha's Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik as saying.

There were no deaths reported but trees and electricity poles were uprooted, officials told PTI, with roads and makeshift mud-brick houses also damaged.

The weather system was expected to curve to the northeast and weaken gradually, India's weather bureau said