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Phailin wreaks havoc

14 killed in India after unprecedented precautionary measures

AFP, Bhubaneswar
Cyclone Phailin left a trail of destruction along India's east coast and at least 14 people dead yesterday, after the biggest evacuation in the country's history helped minimise casualties.
As emergency teams began assessing damage from the country's biggest cyclone in 14 years, a massive relief effort went into full swing to distribute food to an estimated one million evacuees, clear roads and help the injured.
The NDMA's vice chairman Marri Shashidhar Reddy said the cyclone was gradually weakening as it moved inland, and officials said winds were slowing to below 90 kilometres an hour.
Most of the local population spent the night huddled in shelters and public buildings as deafening winds flattened flimsy homes, uprooted trees, and sent glass and asbestos strips flying through the air.
The worst affected area, around the town of Gopalpur in Orissa where the eye of Phailin came ashore packing winds of 200 kilometres an hour, was still without power and communications were down.
Roads strewn with fallen trees were at least open, as emergency services rushed to reach people living there.
"There are 13 deaths in Orissa and one death reported in Andhra Pradesh and so we have been able to... (keep) the death toll to a bare minimum," vice chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority Marri Shashidhar Reddy told reporters.
More than 8,000 people were killed in 1999 when a cyclone hit the same region, devastating crops and livestock. The area took years to recover.
This time round, a massive evacuation operation, which officials said was the biggest in Indian history, appeared to have succeeded in minimisingcasualties.
"I think we have been successful in minimising the loss of precious lives," Orissa's Chief Minister told reporters.
Families, many clutching bags of possessions, or holding their children, returned to what was left of their homes to assess the damage after spending the night in the shelters.
High-sided trucks lying on their sides were witness to the strength of
the winds on the main highway south of Gopalpur, which was littered with uprooted trees and other debris.
Despite the damage, there was a general sense of relief that things could have been a lot worse in Orissa and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.
"We were preparing for a super cyclone, but Phailin did not turn into a super cyclone," spokeswoman for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA),Tripti Pa rule, told AFP.
Officials in Orissa said 873,000 people moved before the cyclone made landfall on Saturday evening, while at least another 100,000 were evacuated further south in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Residents were also evacuated from coastal regions ofWest Bengal state.
Before the storm struck, international weather experts had predicted it would be a "super cyclone", comparable to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina in the United States.
Some of the deadliest storms in history have formed in the Bay of Bengal, including one in 1970 that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh.