Cyclone Arnab weakens after Andhra landfall; at least three dead, crops hit across 70,000 hectares

Cyclone Arnab lost strength on Wednesday after crossing the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coasts in the early hours, leaving a trail of uprooted trees, snapped power lines and waterlogged fields across several coastal districts. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the system crossed the coast south-west of Yanam, about 20 km east-north-east of Narsapur, as a very severe cyclonic storm with sustained winds of 125 to 135 km/h and gusts touching 150 km/h.

By Wednesday afternoon it had weakened into a severe cyclonic storm and was crawling north-north-west. The IMD expected further weakening into a deep depression overnight as the system moved inland towards southern Odisha.

Deaths and damage

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) confirmed at least three deaths in Andhra Pradesh, two of them caused by contact with live electric wires and one by a falling tree in Bhimavaram. Local media reports put the toll higher, and the state government had not issued a consolidated figure by Wednesday night.

Officials reported damage to dozens of houses, hundreds of fallen trees on roads and thousands of uprooted electricity poles, with Konaseema, Kakinada, East Godavari and Visakhapatnam among the worst affected areas. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu put preliminary crop damage at roughly 70,900 hectares, much of it paddy, along with about 10,000 hectares of horticulture. He briefed Union Home Minister Amit Shah and sought an early visit by a central team to assess losses.

More than 28,000 people in Andhra Pradesh were moved to relief shelters before landfall. Train and flight services in the region were heavily disrupted, with dozens of trains cancelled and flights to and from Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada called off for much of the day.

Odisha, Jharkhand on alert

In Odisha, tens of thousands of people were shifted to safer places, and the IMD kept red warnings for Ganjam, Gajapati, Rayagada, Koraput, Malkangiri and Nabarangpur districts, forecasting heavy to very heavy rain and strong winds. Fishermen have been told not to venture into the sea until Thursday. Heavy rain warnings were also issued for parts of Jharkhand, where schools in several districts, including Ranchi, were shut, and the remnants of the system are expected to bring rain to Chhattisgarh and other central and eastern states.

Dozens of NDRF and state disaster response teams were deployed across Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and neighbouring states. District officials in Visakhapatnam said most power and water connections had been restored by Wednesday evening, while work to clear roads and repair lines continued in the hardest-hit rural areas.

Why it matters

The full scale of crop losses will become clearer once floodwater recedes. The damage comes close to harvest time for the kharif paddy crop in the Godavari delta, one of the country's key rice-growing belts, making the central assessment and any relief package important for farmers in the region.