Cyclone Arnab crossed the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coasts in the early hours of Wednesday and weakened into a severe cyclonic storm, the India Meteorological Department said. The National Disaster Response Force confirmed three deaths and damage to 31 houses in Andhra Pradesh.
The storm made landfall near 16.45 degrees north and 81.90 degrees east, about 20 km east-northeast of Narsapur. It lay 40 km southwest of Yanam and 60 km southwest of Kakinada, with peak winds of 135 kmph gusting to 150 kmph.
A 53-year-old man died in Visakhapatnam district on Tuesday night after touching a live wire that had snapped over an agricultural field channel. A 55-year-old woman died in Yellamanchili town of Anakapalli district on Wednesday morning after stepping on an exposed live wire, police said.
Chokka Kishore Kumar, 46, died after a tree fell on him in Bhimavaram around 12.30 am. A newspaper delivery worker, Rambabu, was critically injured when an electric pole fell on his moped in the same town, PTI reported.
The South First reported seven deaths across Visakhapatnam, West Godavari, Konaseema and Anakapalli districts, naming the victims. The state has not issued a consolidated toll.
Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah seeking the early deployment of a central team to assess the damage. He put crop damage at about 70,900 hectares, including paddy.
About 10,450 hectares of that were reported inundated or damaged, Naidu said, and about 180 houses, mostly in Konaseema district, were hit. More than 220 trees fell on state roads, of which over 170 were cleared by Wednesday afternoon.
Naidu's letter said the cyclone had not caused any human casualties, a claim that conflicts with the NDRF's confirmation of three deaths. He said more than 28,000 people had been moved to relief shelters and that the figures were provisional.
District officials reported about 6,000 electric poles uprooted in Konaseema alone. The NDRF's Inspector General, Narendra Singh Bundela, said 714 villages in Andhra Pradesh had been affected.
Thirty-nine NDRF teams and 80 SDRF teams have been deployed across Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Telangana and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Naidu directed officials to clear fallen trees within two hours and restore power once winds eased.
In Visakhapatnam, district Collector Abhishikth Kishore said about 80 per cent of power and water supply had been restored, with about 150 teams clearing fallen trees.
Odisha has moved more than 30,000 people to safer locations, Disaster Management Minister Suresh Pujari said. The state has deployed 313 response teams, including 60 ODRAF, nine NDRF and 244 fire and emergency services teams. The IMD issued a red alert for Nabarangpur, Rayagada, Koraput, Malkangiri, Gajapati and Ganjam districts.
Manorama Mohanty, director of the IMD's Bhubaneswar centre, said the weakening storm was expected to reach Malkangiri by Wednesday night. Odisha has kept 2,037 cyclone shelters ready and all 19,143 fishing boats have returned to shore.
Indian Railways has cancelled at least 91 trains across the eastern and southern regions. Thirty-eight flights to and from Visakhapatnam were cancelled until 6.15 pm, along with 12 flights connecting Chennai with Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Rajahmundry.
The IMD flagged a moderate to high risk of flash floods in 13 Andhra Pradesh districts till 5.30 am on Thursday. It forecast heavy rain in parts of West Bengal until October 31.