(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) NEW DELHI, May 4 (KUNA) -- Indian authorities said on Saturday that the death toll following Cyclone Fani made a landfall on Friday in eastern Indian state of Odisha rose to 16 people as extremely severe cyclonic storm weakened before entering West Bengal.
Quoting official sources, the Press Trust of India said that the death toll due to Fani rose to 16 people and caused huge destruction and damage to infrastructure and properties in Odisha.
However, the weathermen said that the cyclone has weakened before making a landfall in West Bengal state and did not cause massive damage.
A joint team of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Army, Navy and rescue and relief personnel started a massive restoration work across 10,000 villages in the affected areas of Odisha.
Four deaths were reported from Mayurbhanj district while reports of three death each from districts of Puri, Bhubaneswar and Jajpur came to light. One each were killed in Keonjhar, Nayagarh and Kendrapara in Fani.
The current cyclone was considered the severest to hit the state since the Super Cyclone of 1999 caused massive destruction and killed 10,000 people.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said that the critical infrastructure of power, telecom and water supply were tore apart during the cyclone.
"In fact, for Puri district and parts of Khurda where power infrastructure has been totally devastated, we face the challenge of having to set up the entire electrification afresh," Patnaik said.
Various other districts including Cuttack, Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Dhenkanal and Nayagarh were also affected in the cyclone, he added. (end) atk.ibi
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