Cyclone Arnab crossed the Andhra Pradesh coast in the early hours of Wednesday, October 28, completing a landfall that lasted about six hours and bringing destructive winds, heavy rain and a dangerous storm surge to a coastline that had spent days preparing. The India Meteorological Department said the very severe cyclonic storm crossed the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coasts between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam, close to the south of Yanam, from 0200 IST to 0800 IST, with sustained winds of 125 to 135 kilometres per hour and gusts reaching 150 kilometres per hour.
The storm had been tracked for days. It formed from a low pressure area over the east central Bay of Bengal on October 24, deepened into a depression on October 25, intensified into a cyclonic storm by the morning of October 26, and reached very severe cyclonic storm status, the third highest of the department’s seven level scale, before bearing down on the coast. Its slow movement near the coastline prolonged the landfall process, exposing coastal areas to strong winds and heavy rainfall for several hours, and at one stage the storm was described as practically stationary, with its edge on the coast while its centre remained over the sea.
Surge, rain and disruption
The department warned that a storm surge of 1.5 to 2.5 metres above normal tide would likely inundate low lying areas over the six hours following landfall. Trees were uprooted across multiple districts and power supply was disrupted, according to Andhra Pradesh’s chief minister’s office, while outer rain bands lashed coastal Odisha districts including Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Puri, Bhadrak, Khurda and Balasore before the eye crossed land. By 1130 IST the storm had weakened to a severe cyclonic storm, moving with winds of 100 to 110 kilometres per hour and gusts to 120, and was expected to weaken further into a cyclonic storm within three hours and then into a deep depression in the following six hours.
Transport took a heavy hit. Railways cancelled or rescheduled more than 90 services across October 27 to 29 on East Coast and South Coast routes serving Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Odisha junctions, while flights were disrupted at Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Rajahmundry, with Delhi to Bhogapuram services cancelled for the day. The department issued red alerts for extremely heavy rainfall across Andhra Pradesh and for several Odisha districts, with heavy rain warnings extended to Telangana and Jharkhand as the remnants moved inland.
The evacuation behind the numbers
Early reports said no deaths had been reported, a fact that, if it holds through the damage assessment, will owe much to the evacuation effort. Reports put the combined number of people moved to safety in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha at more than 100,000, with some counts higher: one account put Andhra Pradesh’s shelter total above 84,000 and Odisha’s near 48,000, while another cited figure above 180,000 across both states. The range reflects different counting points and different moments in a moving operation, and readers should treat the precise total as provisional until state authorities publish a consolidated figure.
What is not in doubt is the human detail inside the operation. Reports of the landfall included an evacuee at a government shelter near Kakinada, Rajeshwari, 65, who told reporters that her home floods and that her family has to stay in the water. Official’s account of the preparations described the evacuation race that preceded landfall. The next phase is less dramatic but just as important: restoring power, clearing roads, checking low lying areas after the surge, and getting people home safely once the rain eases.
