VISAKHAPATNAM: Cyclone Hudhud blasted India’s eastern seaboard on Sunday with gusts of up to 195km per hour, uprooting trees, damaging buildings and killing at least five people despite a major evacuation effort.

The port city of Visakhapatnam, home to two million people and a major naval base, was hammered as the cyclone made landfall, unleashing the huge destructive force it had sucked up from the warm waters of the Bay of Bengal.

Wreckage was strewn across Visakhapatnam, known to locals as Vizag. Most people heeded warnings to take refuge, but five were killed by falling trees and masonry, and thousands of homes were damaged, emergency officials said.

The chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, the state that bore the brunt of Hudhud’s onslaught, said the extent of damage would only become known after the storm abated.

“We are unable to ascertain the situation. Seventy per cent of communication has totally collapsed ... this is the biggest calamity,” N. Chandrababa Naidu told Headlines Today television.

“We are asking people not to come out of their houses,” Mr Naidu said, adding that damage assessment would start on Monday. “We are mobilising men and material immediately.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Mr Naidu and promised “all possible assistance in relief and rescue operations”, his central government said in a statement.

The low toll reported so far followed an operation to evacuate more than 150,000 people to minimise the risk to life from Hudhud — similar in size and power to cyclone Phailin that struck the area exactly a year ago.

After a lull as the eye of the storm passed over the city, winds regained their potency. Forecasters warned Hudhud would blow strongly for several hours more, before wind speeds halved.

“Reverse windflow will be experienced by the city, which will again have a very great damage potential,” L.S. Rathore, director-general of the state India Meteorological Department (IMD), told reporters in New Delhi.

The IMD forecast a storm surge of one to two metres above high tide that could result in flooding of low-lying coastal areas around Visakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram and Srikakulam.

A reporter in Visakhapatnam said the storm had smashed his hotel’s windows and flooded the ground floor. It was difficult even to open the door of his room, he said, as wind rushing through the corridors drove it shut again.

“I never imagined that a cyclone could be so dangerous and devastating,” said one businessman who was staying in the hotel. “The noise it is making would terrify anyone.”

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2014