Storm Batters India as Half a Million People Evacuated
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Cyclone Phailin, the most powerful tropical storm India’s eastern coast has faced since 1999, made landfall as heavy rains and winds packing up to 210 kilometers an hour lashed the region, flooding roads and uprooting trees.
Phailin, Thai for “sapphire,” struck near Gopalpur in Odisha about 600 kilometers (373 miles) southwest of Kolkata, L.S. Rathore, director-general of the India Meteorological Department said in a briefing yesterday. The cyclone would remain a “very severe cyclonic storm” for six hours after touching the coast, he said.