Casualty figures are yet to come in as day broke on Sunday and rescue teams, very few in number, moving out to make an assessment of the damage.
Vast swathes of coastal districts of Odisha, especially Ganjam, whose Gopalpur-on-sea was the entry point for the storm, were engulfed in darkness as trees and electric poles were felled by the cyclone. Terrified people were forced to remain indoors by heavy rains and vehicular traffic came to a grinding halt.
Bracing for the cyclonic storm, more than half a million people were evacuated by authorities from vulnerable areas in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh in one of the biggest such exercises.
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