Cyclone Fani In West Bengal: More Than 45000 people Evacuated Across The State. No Casualties Reported 

After causing devastation in Odisha, a weakened Cyclone Fani moved to West Bengal with coastal areas of the state receiving with heavy rains, The Statesman reported.

The officials in the weather department said the extremely severe cyclonic storm has relatively weakened and transformed into “very severe” when it approached Bengal

No loss of life or any injury has been reported so far from any part of the state.

“The severe cyclonic storm Fani entered Bengal at 12.30 a.m. through Odisha’s Balasore. It crossed Kharagpur packing a wind of 70-80 kmph, gusting to 90 kmph,” said Sanjib Bandyopadhyay, Deputy Director General of Regional Meteorological Centre.

He added: “It is likely to continue further in north, north east direction, and reach the east Burdwan-Hooghly border, and through Nadia go to Bangladesh on Saturday afternoon, weakening into a cyclonic storm, after having triggered rains.”

More than 45, 000 people across the state had been evacuated to safer places.

Digha, Mandarmani, Tajpur and Contai experienced dusty winds with speed reaching up to 100 kmph, accompanied by heavy rains. In Kharagpur and Burdwan, the cyclonic wind uprooted trees and electricity poles.

Parts of Kolkata and its suburbs received moderate to heavy rainfall. Most shops and malls were shut down in Kolkata and several hoardings were pulled down as a precautionary measure.

More than 1800 people in Kolkata had been moved to safer places prior to the arrival of the cyclone.

Kolkatta Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the police to take steps to deploy cranes and evacuate residents from the top floor of the high rises in Chowringhee to safer places with immediate effect.

No flights departed or arrived at Kolkata airport from 3 pm on Friday to 8 am on Saturday. However according to latest reports, flight operations have resumed at the Kolkata airport now.