World News
Cyclone Arnab heads for Andhra Pradesh as Indian states prepare to move people from the coast
By Staff Writer | 27 October 2026
The weather office expects the storm to cross the coast near Kakinada around noon on Wednesday with gusts of up to 140 kmph. Seven Andhra Pradesh districts are on red alert for extremely heavy rain.
Two states on India's east coast spent Monday preparing for Cyclone Arnab, which the India Meteorological Department expects to cross the coast of Andhra Pradesh as a very severe cyclonic storm around noon on Wednesday 28 October. The storm is forecast to make landfall close to Yanam or Kakinada, with winds gusting to 140 kmph.
Arnab formed over the Bay of Bengal on Monday morning and had strengthened into a severe cyclonic storm by the evening. At 5.30pm it lay about 560 km east-southeast of Kakinada and 490 km east-southeast of Visakhapatnam, and the weather office expected it to strengthen further before landfall.
Red alerts in seven districts
The weather office has issued red alerts for seven of Andhra Pradesh's 28 districts for Tuesday: Kakinada, East Godavari, Dr B.R. Ambedkar Konaseema, Eluru, West Godavari, Alluri Sitharama Raju and Anakapalli. Isolated extremely heavy rainfall of 200 mm or more is likely there. The state disaster management authority has warned of gales of 90 to 100 kmph, gusting to 110 kmph, along the coast, and fishermen have been told not to go to sea.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has ordered officials to evacuate people from flood-prone areas, to give priority to vulnerable residents and to deploy disaster response teams. Officials said 4,711 pregnant women will be moved to health facilities and that 30,043 fishing boats have returned to harbour. The state has sent seven National Disaster Response Force and eight State Disaster Response Force battalions to the districts likely to be affected. A senior state disaster management official said Andhra Pradesh had identified 570,000 people as vulnerable and that evacuations would begin on Monday evening.
Odisha readies its shelters
Neighbouring Odisha has closed schools and colleges in five districts for Tuesday and Wednesday. Its government said more than 1,700 shelters are ready in the southern districts of Malkangiri, Koraput, Nabarangpur, Gajapati and Rayagada. The Special Relief Commissioner, Rajesh Pravakar Patil, said the state has 135 permanent cyclone shelters in the vulnerable districts and has made 1,600 temporary shelters available.
The Chief Secretary, Anu Garg, spoke to the media after a review meeting by video conference with the Cabinet Secretary, T.V. Somanathan.
We have prepared district-specific plans to face emergency situation in view of the impending cyclone. We are monitoring the health condition of roughly 3,000 pregnant women. They will be shifted to safer place if the situation warrants.
Anu Garg, Chief Secretary of Odisha
The central government has promised additional disaster response forces, and help from the Army and the Navy if conditions worsen, Garg said.
Odisha's Chief Minister, Mohan Charan Majhi, has said the state will remain fully prepared although landfall is forecast in Andhra Pradesh, and that its aim is that nobody dies. The Bay of Bengal is one of the world's main regions for tropical cyclones, and Wednesday will show whether the preparations are enough.