Thousands evacuated as tropical storm heads towards India

Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated, schools closed, and trains and flights cancelled as a severe tropical storm approached eastern India on Thursday.

Tropical storm Dana is inching across the Bay of Bengal towards the eastern coast of India and is expected to make landfall late on Thursday or early on Friday.

This is according to the Indian Meteorological Department.

It said the cyclonic storm is expected to bring winds of 100-110 kilometres per hour.

The two major airports in the region in Kolkata and Bhubaneswar are to be closed from 6 p.m. (1230 GMT).

More than 300,000 people have already been evacuated from vulnerable areas to storm shelters and temporary relief camps, officials from Odisha state on the Bay of Bengal said.

It added that, they planned to evacuate a total of one million people.

Similar evacuations in West Bengal were affected by heavy rains and squalls, the Times of India newspaper reported.

It said fishermen were told not to venture out and relief and rescue teams are on alert.

Cyclones often form over the Bay of Bengal between April and November, bringing widespread destruction and flooding to India’s eastern coastal areas and neighbouring Bangladesh.

Experts say the number of such storms in the region is increasing as a result of climate change.