Kolkata (TAN): The city airport will close from 1500 hours today with the cyclone Fani (pronounced Foni) making landfall earlier in the day in east India’s Odisha state and making its way northwards towards West Bengal, of which Kolkata is the capital.
Fani, which has been classified as “extremely severe cyclonic storm”, is the biggest storm in the region since the 1999 super cyclone that left 10,000 dead in Odisha. Fani will see wind speeds as high as 200 kmph.
Almost a million people have been evacuated from coastal areas to temporary shelters in Odisha.
All flights in and out of Bhubaneswar and Kolkata have been cancelled during this time and the airlines concerned have issued notifications to this effect.
With the general elections taking place in India at the moment, several big election rallies had been scheduled to take place in the region on May 3 and 4. Several of these had to be cancelled.
