Amphan Wreaks Havoc in Coastal Region

Cyclone 'Amphan' hit the coast of Bangladesh on Wednesday night after landfall in West Bengal, India, with a huge impact on lives, infrastructure, and crops.

Millions of people have been pounded as the worst cyclone in Bangladesh and East India in decades.

Amphan tore through coastal villages, flattening mud homes, flipping walls, cutting down trees, and causing crop destruction.

The authorities have been struggling to evacuate more than three million people from low-lying areas, but the task has been complicated by the need to prevent coronavirus spread.

In Bangladesh, officials reported three deaths, including a five-year-old boy and a 75-year-old man, both hit by falling trees, and an emergency cyclone volunteer drowned news agencies.

Under the impact of the cyclone, the low-lying and river belt regions of the coastal districts were flooded with tidal waves of 7-10 feet.

The cyclone fury damaged huge crops, many houses, property, and valuables, and uprooted trees.

The extremely severe cyclonic storm was crossing between West Bengal and Bangladesh close to the Sundarbans delta at night and likely to fully enter Bangladesh coast by midnight.

Bangladesh has been saved partially as the central part of the cyclone system went through West Bengal, said Kawsara Parvin, deputy director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD).

It started crossing the Bangladesh coastline around 5:00 pm with a wind speed of around 160 to 180kph rising to 200kph within 80km of its centre, said Meteorologist Abdul Mannan.

Amphan would take around six to eight hours for the entire storm system to cross the coastline by midnight, he said in the evening.

It unloaded pounding gusty winds and torrential rain across Bangladesh while its coastal districts witnessed storm surged.

Amphan started making a landfall at 2:30pm (IST) and continue for about four hours to storm into the land. It crossed West Bengal coast between Digha (West Bengal) and Hatiya Island (Bangladesh) close to the Sunderbans, according to an hourly bulletin of India Meteorological Department (IMD).

The storm lost some of its intensity and was downgraded from a super cyclone to an "extremely severe cyclonic storm" on Tuesday as it advanced towards the Indian coast, according to the Indian Met Office.

Despite undergoing additional weakening, Amphan remained an extremely dangerous storm as it made landfall over northeastern India and lashed Bangladesh in the afternoon as the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane.

Amphan, now classified as an extremely severe cyclonic storm by the IMD, was packed with maximum sustained winds at 160-170 km / h (100-105 mph) and gusts at 190 km / h (120 mph) as it roared ashore.

The head of the Bay of Bengal region will be threatened by torrential rain, widespread damaging winds and extreme storm surges as the storm continues to move inland.

Kolkata, the capital city of West Bengal, will suffer a direct blow from the storm.

Rain triggered by Amphan was being poured into the coastal districts since morning amid gusty winds.

Bangladesh rescued over 2.4 million citizens as the cyclone rushed to the coast of the country. According to State Minister for Disaster Management and Relief Enamur Rahman, more than 500,000 livestock have also been transferred to health.

Amphan will quickly lose wind speed as it moves inland on Thursday, but the threat of flooding rainfall will continue through the end of the week, reported Accuweather, a US-based weather center.

This cyclone will carry plenty of moisture with it, and rainfall totals of 100-200 mm (4-8 inches) are likely from eastern Odisha to West Bengal , Bihar and Bangladesh from Tuesday night into Thursday, it said.

Significant flooding is expected across northeastern India, Bhutan and northern Bangladesh, it said.