New Delhi (Agencies): A cyclone packing winds of up to 150 kilometres per hour and heavy rains hit eastern India early Thursday (Oct 11), with more than 300,000 people evacuated from low-lying areas and two men reported killed.
Officials in neighbouring Bangladesh said they were on alert in the coastal district of Cox's Bazar, home to around one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in tarpaulin and bamboo shelters.
Cyclone Titli, which intensified into a "very severe cyclonic storm" over the Bay of Bengal, made landfall on India's eastern coast early Thursday, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported.
Wind speeds of up to 150kph were reported, with gusts of up to 165kph.
One man died in a house collapse while another was killed by a falling tree, an emergency services official was quoted as saying by PTI.
A cyclone packing winds of up to 150 kilometres per hour and heavy rains hit eastern India early Thursday (Oct 11), with more than 300,000 people evacuated from low-lying areas and two men reported killed.
Officials in neighbouring Bangladesh said they were on alert in the coastal district of Cox's Bazar, home to around one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in tarpaulin and bamboo shelters.
Cyclone Titli, which intensified into a "very severe cyclonic storm" over the Bay of Bengal, made landfall on India's eastern coast early Thursday, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported.
Wind speeds of up to 150kph were reported, with gusts of up to 165kph.
One man died in a house collapse while another was killed by a falling tree, an emergency services official was quoted as saying by PTI.
Trees and electricity poles were uprooted, officials told PTI, with roads and houses also damaged.
The Bangladeshi government's Rohingya commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam said the cyclone had brought rain to Cox's Bazar over the last three days.
"We're on alert. We've taken adequate cautionary measures for the cyclone," Kalam told AFP, adding Dhaka had held meetings with agencies operating in the camps in preparation for the storm.
