India Cyclone Ruins 15% of Odisha Rice Area
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India carried out the largest evacuation in the nation’s history, shifting one million people from the path of a cyclone that slammed into its eastern coast in a move that helped limit fatalities and highlighted the effective response of the government.
At least 17 people were killed as Cyclone Phailin, Thai for “sapphire,” made landfall Oct. 12 near Gopalpur in Odisha about 600 kilometers (373 miles) southwest of Kolkata. Heavy rains and winds as high as 210 kilometers an hour lashed the region, flooding roads and uprooting trees. Phailin is the strongest to hit Odisha since 1999, when a tropical storm with wind speeds of 260 kilometers per hour killed 9,000 people.