Cyclone Fani leaves 17 dead in India and Bangladesh but mass evacuations hailed for saving thousands of lives

Winds of 124 mph submerge villages, destroy homes, wreck power lines and rip up trees across two countries

At least 17 people have died in the strongest cyclone to hit India and Bangladesh in five years, but officials have hailed a mammoth evacuation which moved more than 1.2 million citizens and tourists to safety as having saved thousands of lives.

Cyclone Fani killed 12 people in the country’s eastern Odisha state on Friday and Saturday before swinging into Bangladesh where another five died.

Winds of 124mph tore roofs from buildings, snapped power lines and ripped up trees across the two countries. More than 150 people were left injured.

The storm has now been downgraded to a depression by the India Meteorological Department.

“The fear of a major disaster is mostly over as [Fani] has weakened,” said Shamsuddin Ahmed, director of the Bangladesh Meteorological Department.

Authorities in the two countries are now assessing the damage left by the cyclone, which had spent days building over the Bay of Bengal.

The seaside temple town of Puri, which lay directly in Fani’s path, is reported to have been among the worst struck.

“Destruction is unimaginable,” said Bishnupada Sethi, Odisha’s special relief commissioner. “Puri is devastated.”

Video footage taken from an Indian navy aircraft showed extensive flooding in the area with both crops and electricity infrastructure completely destroyed.

In Bangladesh, several villages have been submerged and homes wrecked in the country’s Noakhali district where a two-year-old child was confirmed among the dead.

As the storm passed, people have now started returning to their home, before the huge task of restoring damaged buildings begins next week.

The evacuation itself was called “one of the biggest human evacuations in history” by chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

More than 100,000 government officials, 45,000 volunteers, and 2,000 civil society groups were mobilised, and 9,000 shelters and 7,000 kitchens pressed into service, Mr Patnaik said.

Certainly, there seems little doubt the action saved lives: previous cyclones in the area have left thousands dead, most notably the super-cyclone which battered Odisha in 1999, killing some 10,000 residents and visitors.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in the middle of a general election campaign, said that he would visit Odisha on Monday.