Trees, power lines flattened as Cyclone Dana hits India

Cyclone Dana tore the roofs off homes and flattened trees and power lines after making landfall on Friday on India’s east coast, but did not appear to have caused significant casualties.Cyclones - the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the northwestern Pacific - are a regular and deadly menace in the northern Indian Ocean.At least 1.1mn people in the states of Odisha and West Bengal were relocated to storm shelters before the eye of the cyclone reached the coast just after midnight.District official Siddarth Swain said the storm had left a "trail of destruction” in the coastal town of Puri. "Many trees and electric poles are uprooted,” he added. "Makeshift shops on the sprawling beach have been blown away.”No casualties have been reported so far.Dana flooded parts of the coast after triggering a surge in sea levels of up to 3.75 feet.As of landfall, the storm had gusting winds up to 120km per hour.The Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world, was hit by a "gale force wind” that caused hundreds of trees to be uprooted, West Bengal minister Bankim Chandra Hazra said."The cyclone also damaged hundreds of homes, blowing off roofs in coastal areas,” he added.Major airports were shut on Thursday night including in Kolkata, India’s third-biggest city and a key travel hub, which was lashed by heavy rains.