Cyclone Montha Makes Landfall Over Andhra Pradesh

New Delhi: Severe cyclonic storm Montha crossed the central Andhra Pradesh coast in the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday (October 29), said the India Meteorological Department (IMD), clocking wind speeds of 90-100 kilometres per hour and gusts of 110 km/hr.

The cyclone, which began making landfall as of 7 pm on Tuesday, hit Andhra Pradesh's coast near Narsapur sometime between 11:30 pm and 12:30 am on Wednesday, the department said.

Montha's rear sector is estimated to entirely move overland by 2:30 am and the storm, which is expected to progress northwestwards, is predicted to weaken into a ‘cyclonic storm’ by early Wednesday morning.

Machilipatnam town recorded a wind speed of 64 km/h while Kavali and Ulavapadu, which are along Andhra's southern coast, recorded a cumulative rainfall of 210 mm and 170 mm respectively between 8:30 am and 11:30 pm on Tuesday, the IMD said.

PTI cited a police officer as saying that a woman in the state's Konaseema district, which is in the path of the cyclone, died after a palm tree fell on her.

Standing crops in up to 38,000 hectares and horticulture crops in as many as 1.38 lakh hectares in Andhra Pradesh were destroyed due to the cyclone, while close to 76,000 people were evacuated to relief camps, the news agency also reported.

The National Disaster Response Force has deployed 26 teams in light of the storm, with 12 of them in Andhra Pradesh, six in Odisha and three in northern Tamil Nadu, commandant Gyaneshwar Singh told ANI. It also deployed personnel in Chhattisgarh and Telangana, he said.

Montha has also caused heavy rain, triggered landslides and damaged homes in Odisha's coastal and southern districts, PTI cited officials as saying.

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