5 die as severe cyclone lashes southern India
Residents wade along a waterlogged road after heavy rains following Cyclone Nivar landfall, in Puducherry on Thursday.
A severe cyclone slammed into India’s southern coast early on Thursday, killing at least five people and uprooting trees and power lines.
Cyclone Nivar made landfall near the city of Puducherry, near the southern state of Tamil Nadu, with winds of up to 130 kilometers per hour, according to the India Meteorological Department.
Heavy rains caused flooding in some streets of the city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu’s largest city which is home to many large automobile manufacturers.
The storm killed at least five people in and around Chennai from trees falling, drowning and electrocution, the Times of India reported. A spokesman for the chief minister’s office declined to comment.
People in Velachery, a low-lying suburb of Chennai, said the impact was mitigated by government precautions, compared with hundreds of deaths during floods in 2015.
“The situation was terrible here during the floods in 2015. This year, because of the precautions taken, the situation has not been that bad,” said local shopkeeper S. Sakthivel.
More than 100 cars were parked on the edge of a bridge in Velachery to keep them above the floodwaters.
