In brief
Cyclone Murasu hit India's eastern coast late Monday, uprooting trees, toppling power poles, and flooding low‑lying areas in Andhra Pradesh. Authorities evacuated 30,000 residents and began relief operations after the storm, following a week of severe weather that also included Cyclone Arnab.
Cyclone Murasu made landfall on India's eastern coast in the Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh between 1 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. local time on Monday, an early warning from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) confirmed. The storm struck near Ongole, a coastal town that had already endured the aftermath of Cyclone Arnab a week earlier, and brought winds of 100‑110 km h-1 with a large eye and heavy rainfall over the surrounding plains.
The IMD forecasted that Andhra Pradesh and the adjoining state of Tamil Nadu would suffer the most severe impacts, predicting “heavy to very heavy rain” across several districts for the rest of the day. In the wake of the storm, thousands of trees were uprooted and hundreds of electricity poles damaged, cutting power to entire villages and disrupting transport links. Hovering water levels turned low‑lying stretches of the coast into temporary riverbeds, leaving many homes underwater and crops below the water line.
Prakhar Jain, managing director of the Andhra Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority, said that no deaths or injuries had been reported to date. He added, “some trees and electricity poles had been uprooted.”
No deaths or injuries have been reported so far.
The damage was particularly extensive in the districts of Prakasam and Bapatla, where the storm felled thousands of trees, toppled hundreds of power poles, and wrecked fishing boats that lined the coastline. Standing crops were also hit, creating an immediate concern for food security in the region. Their loss compounded the damage from the previous cyclone and raised alarms about the region’s resilience to successive storms.
Meanwhile, Krishnamma, a fisherman from Kothapatnam in Prakasam district, told the Press Trust of India that his community had already begun to evacuate. “This is the most dangerous cyclone we have witnessed in the last 14 years,” he said. He explained that about 400 families from his village had been moved out before the storm’s surge hit the lowlands.
This is the most dangerous cyclone we have witnessed in the last 14 years.
The Andhra Pradesh government began evacuating residents on Monday, moving approximately 30,000 people from the most vulnerable areas to safer locations in the interior. The State Disaster Management Authority coordinated with local police and the Indian Armed Forces to set up emergency shelters and deploy relief supplies such as water, edible oil and ready‑to‑eat meals.
During the crisis, Home Minister Amit Shah announced on X that he had spoken to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu about the cyclone’s impact. “I assured him that the Central Government will provide all kinds of assistance and support,” Shah wrote, noting that national and state disaster response teams were already on the ground. The central government also mobilized the National Disaster Response Force and started rail and road corridors for relief distribution.
I assured him that the Central Government will provide all kinds of assistance and support.
The storm’s intensity and the back‑to‑back impact of two cyclones in quick succession emphasize how climate‑driven weather patterns can magnify the risk to coastal communities. While the primary focus is relief now, officials are already discussing measures to strengthen mangrove buffers and reinforce embankments, learning from the past damages to reduce vulnerability to future events. The Indian Meteorological Department will continue to issue forecasts for the next 72 hours, and scientists are monitoring atmospheric conditions over the Bay of Bengal to anticipate possible future cyclonic development in the season.
