Cyclone Dana is likely to hit the coasts of West Bengal and Odisha states -- home to around 150 million people -- as a "severe cyclonic storm" late on Thursday, India's weather bureau said.
It predicts winds will be gusting up to 120 kilometres an hour (74 miles per hour).
Major airports will shut overnight, including key travel hub Kolkata, where heavy rain was already lashing the sprawling megacity.
The eye of the storm is predicted to make landfall early Friday, near the coal-exporting port of Dhamra, about 230 kilometres (140 miles) southwest of the megacity Kolkata.
It is also expected to impact neighbouring low-lying Bangladesh, where the leader of the interim government Muhammad Yunus said that "extensive preparations" are being made.
Crashing waves are expected to inundate swathes of coastal areas, with water predicted to surge up to two metres (6.5 feet) above usual tide levels.
Odisha state health minister Mukesh Mahaling told AFP that "nearly a million people from the coastal areas are being evacuated to cyclone centres".
In neighbouring West Bengal state, government minister Bankim Chandra Hazra said: "More than 100,000 people have so far been shifted to safer places."
- 'Save lives' -
Businesses in Puri, a popular beach resort, have been ordered to close, and tourists told to leave.
"All efforts are being made to face the cyclone and save lives," said Puri district magistrate Siddharth Swain.
Kolkata airport director Pravat Ranjan Beuria said flights will be suspended overnight Thursday due to "predicted heavy winds and heavy to very heavy rainfall".
The airport in the city of Bhubaneshwar will do the same, while scores of trains have been cancelled and ferries from Kolkata ordered to stay in port.
Bangladesh disaster minister Faruk-e-Azam told AFP that authorities were on "high alert" but evacuation orders had not been issued as it was predicted the worst of the storm would hit India.
"We are closely monitoring the cyclone's progress," he said.
Cyclones -- the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the northwestern Pacific -- are a regular and deadly menace in the northern Indian Ocean.
Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world heats up due to climate change driven by burning fossil fuels.
Warmer ocean surfaces release more water vapour, which provides additional energy for storms, strengthening winds.
A warming atmosphere also allows them to hold more water, boosting heavy rainfall.
However, better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced death tolls.
In May, Cyclone Remal killed at least 48 people in India, and at least 17 people in Bangladesh, according to government figures.
Philippines races to reach stranded as storm's death toll rises
Manila (AFP) Oct 24, 2024 -
Philippine rescuers raced Thursday to reach residents still stranded by flooding in the hard-hit Bicol region, after torrential rains from Tropical Storm Trami submerged villages and killed more than 20 people.
Schools and government offices were shuttered across the northern Philippines as the storm made landfall on the country's main island of Luzon after first paving a trail of destruction south of the capital.
"As of 7 am, we have 20 dead (throughout the Bicol region)," regional police chief Brigadier-General Andre Dizon told reporters Thursday, adding the figure had yet to be finalised. "Most of them from drowning or buried in landslides."
In Naga city and the town of Nabua, rescuers were using boats to reach residents still stranded on rooftops.
"They are seeking assistance through (Facebook) posts and that's how we learned about them," Bicol police spokeswoman Luisa Calubaquib told AFP.
According to the national weather service, the eye of the storm was passing over the northern Philippines' mountainous interior as of 8 am (0000 GMT) with maximum sustained wind speeds of 95 kilometres (59 miles) per hour.
It was predicted to exit the island within 12 hours.
More than 30,000 people were forced to evacuate in Bicol on Wednesday, police said, as "unexpectedly high" flooding turned streets into rivers.
Lorie Dela Cruz of the state weather bureau told AFP a month's worth of rainfall had been dumped in the region in a 24-hour window from 8 am on October 22 to the following morning, with Camarines Sur province and Albay province's Legazpi city particularly hard hit.
On Thursday, rescuers were searching for a missing fisherman after a boat sunk in the waters off Bulacan province, west of Manila, the local disaster agency told AFP.
"Rescuing people was difficult since the wind was strong and was causing a strong current," said Geraldine Martinez, a rescue officer in Bulacan's Obando municipality.
A day earlier, 11 people drowned in floodwaters in the Bicol city of Naga, according to local police chief Erwin Rebellion.
In Quezon province, southeast of the capital, an elderly woman drowned, while a toddler was also killed after falling into a flooded canal, police said.
Manila's civil defence office reported one person was killed by a falling tree branch.
Storms and typhoons are common around the region at this time of year.
However, a recent study showed that they are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Philippines or its surrounding waters each year, damaging homes and infrastructure and killing dozens of people.
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