Cyclone Slams Indian State, Leaves 400 Dead

A fierce cyclone roared through India’s southeast coast, flooding rice paddies and villages and ripping power poles from the ground, authorities in Andhra Pradesh state said Thursday.

At least 400 residents were killed and 1,500 people were missing, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu said after an aerial survey. The death toll could reach 2,000, he said.

The cyclone destroyed 10,000 homes as the fertile rice-growing region was ravaged Wednesday night by winds approaching 100 mph.

“Except for houses made of brick and cement, nothing is standing there,” Naidu said.

The storm flooded roads and railroad tracks, halting all train traffic and stranding thousands of passengers. Telephone lines were washed out, and information from some storm-hit areas was unavailable.

With heavy rain still pounding the region 24 hours later, relief officials said many areas remained out of reach.

It was the second major storm in three weeks, coming before the battered region had time to recover from widespread storms and flooding that killed 350 people.

Another state official said at least 250 villages were under water and that many communities on the Bay of Bengal were inundated by 12-foot waves. Hundreds of thousands of acres of rice crops were destroyed.

Many of the fatalities occurred when the mud walls of houses collapsed on the victims. A ferry sank with 42 people on board in the Godavari River. There were no survivors.