Cyclone Arnab begins making landfall in India's Andhra Pradesh state

BHUBANESWAR: A severe cyclone began making landfall in India's Andhra Pradesh state in the early hours of Wednesday, bringing high-speed winds and heavy rain that uprooted trees and disrupted power supplies, authorities said.

Thousands of people were evacuated along India's eastern coast this week, and some train and flight services were cancelled ahead of Cyclone Arnab's arrival.

The India Meteorological Department said wind speeds over the landfall area were forecast to reach 125-135km/h, with gusts of up to 150kph, over the next four hours before decreasing gradually.

A storm surge of 1.5 to 2.5 metres above the normal tide was very likely to inundate low-lying areas of Andhra Pradesh over the next six hours, the IMD said.

No loss of life had been reported so far, although trees had been uprooted in several places and power supplies disrupted, the office of Andhra Pradesh's chief minister said.

Arnab is sweeping in from the Bay of Bengal, a major region for tropical cyclones that has spawned deadly storms along India's east coast.

A super cyclone that killed nearly 10,000 people when it hit Odisha in October 1999 remains one of the country's deadliest natural disasters.