NEW DELHI, May 4 (CGTN) -- Cyclone Fani, one of the most severe storms to hit the region in recent years, headed for Kolkata, capital city of the Indian state of West Bengal, on Saturday after leaving a trail of deadly destruction along the country's east coast.
Fani has reportedly killed at least eight people in India and one person in Bangladesh, some hit by flying trees and lumps of concrete carried by ferocious winds. A state official told the AFP news agency that although official figures have not been confirmed, around 160 people had been injured in Puri, a city in the Indian state of Odisha, alone.
While weakening, the storm, which had packed winds of 200 kilometers an hour, lashed torrential rain onto Kolkata, and its normally packed streets were empty ahead of the arrival of Fani, which means "snake" in the Bengali language.
More than one million people have been evacuated from Odisha.
The rampage of cyclone Fani
Eight people were killed in Odisha, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported, including a teenage boy crushed under a tree and a woman hit by concrete debris.
Authorities in Bangladesh, next in Fani's path, said a woman was killed by a tree, and that 14 villages were inundated as a tidal surge breached flood dams even before the storm arrived.
While not confirming any deaths, Odisha disaster management official Prabhat Mahapatra said there were about 160 people injured in the Hindu pilgrimage city of Puri alone.
The storm made landfall just south of Puri and immediately tore up trees and flimsy thatched roof homes.
"It just went dark and then suddenly we could barely see five meters in front of us," said one Puri resident.
"There were roadside food carts, store signs all flying by in the air," the man said. "The wind is deafening."
PTI reported that a construction crane collapsed and that a police booth was dragged 60 meters by the wind.
Electricity pylons were down, tin roofs were ripped off and windows on many buildings were smashed.
Puri's famous 12th-century Jagannath temple escaped damage however.
Gouranga Malick, 48, was solemnly picking up bricks after the small two-room house he shared with his six-strong family collapsed, its roof blown away.
"I have never witnessed this type of devastation in my lifetime," said the man.
