Unprecedented Tropical Cyclone Kills More Than 86 People - Trail Of Destruction Left Behind

Unprecedented Tropical Cyclone Amphan Kills More than 86 People and Leaves Trail of Destruction With Millions Without Power in India and Bangladesh

Cyclone Amphan left a trail of destruction across coastal India and Bangladesh.

Dozens of people were killed, homes were flattened and millions left without power.

Powerful cyclone Amphan killed more than 85 people in India and Bangladesh, flattening tens of thousands of homes and battering the metropolis of Kolkata after it roared ashore on Wednesday.

“It feels like a dystopian Jurassic Park of sorts,” Shuli Ghosh, who runs a cafe in Kolkata, told The Associated Press. “The roofs of many homes have flown away and the streets are waterlogged.”

The storm began over the Bay of Bengal as one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded in the northern Indian Ocean.

The Indian state of West Bengal bore the brunt of the storm’s fury.

Two low-lying districts in the state suffered widespread destruction of homes, crops and infrastructure, while its capital, Kolkata, witnessed torrential rains and winds of up to 100 miles an hour.

Cyclone Amphan left an “unprecedented trail of devastation,” said Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal.

A metropolis of 15 million people known for its crumbling charm, Kolkata awoke Thursday to waterlogged streets filled with debris, power outages and the sight of huge trees toppled over onto cars and buses, crumpling them like tin cans.

“The mud houses have been flattened, there are cable wires and fallen trees everywhere. It is a devastating sight.”

At least 72 people died in West Bengal, 15 of them in Kolkata. Many were crushed by falling trees or electrocuted by downed power lines.

Additionally, two people were killed in Odisha state, India and more than 13 in Bangladesh.

The full scope of the damage still hasn’t been assessed because roads and bridges are washed out, preventing crews from reaching some areas. Communications are also down.

About 3 million people were evacuated from their homes in India ahead of the storm’s arrival.

Officials struggled to find enough shelters for evacuees. In the state of West Bengal, cyclone shelters can usually house 500,000 people, but because of social distancing rules, that number has been slashed to 200,000.