India braces for Cyclone Arnab with evacuations

Indian authorities ordered evacuations in southwestern Andhra Pradesh ahead of a severe cyclone expected to make landfall by Wednesday, the national weather office said.

Cyclone Arnab is forecast to hit the coast as a "very severe cyclonic storm", with gusts of up to 140 kilometres (87 miles) per hour, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in a bulletin on Tuesday. Cyclones, called hurricanes in the North Atlantic and typhoons in the Pacific, are a regular menace in the Bay of Bengal and northern Indian Ocean.

The storm season, however, has been turbocharged by the El Nino weather phenomenon that has caused unprecedented warming.

A man holds an umbrella as it rains, at the Galle Face seafront promenade in Colombo on Monday. AFP.

Neighbouring Sri Lanka, meanwhile, closed schools with warnings of torrential rain, with the island's Department of Meteorology warning storms could trigger flash floods and mudslides.

The military has been placed on alert, Colombo's Disaster Management Centre said. India's weather bureau said it expects the cyclone to result in "total destruction" of thatched houses and create localised flooding, uprooting of power and communication poles, and "widespread damage" to standing crops.

State Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu has ordered the storm be "constantly monitored and advance precautions taken", his office said in a statement on Monday. Local media reported that Andhra Pradesh authorities had ordered evacuations in key, low-lying areas and shut "all educational institutions" in some districts from Tuesday until Saturday.

Over 4,700 pregnant women residing in potentially dangerous localities were moved to hospitals, according to The Indian Express newspaper.

Agence France-Presse