Cyclone Hudhud hit Andhra Pradesh on October 12, forcing Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd's (RINL) to stop production at its lone facility at Visakhapatnam due to failure of power supply.
While standing paddy crops were hit in thousands of hectares in southern Odisha due to untimely rain, other crops such as vegetables, sugarcane, pulses, groundnut and cotton were also damaged.
The residents of Visakhapatnam have been reeling under a crisis as electricity and daily need items like milk were not available and communication network had virtually collapsed due to the devastation caused by the cyclone which struck on Sunday.
The prices of essential goods is soaring with a bottle of water being sold for Rs 250. ATMs are not working and petrol pumps are running dry.
The intensity of the cyclone has reduced from over 200 kilometre per hour to about 100 kilometre per hour now. The cyclone has now converted from a very severe cyclonic storm to a severe storm.
Even after landfall of cyclone Hudhud, the system will maintain the intensity of very severe cyclonic storm for six hours and gradually weaken into cyclonic storm in subsequent six hours while moving northwestwards across south interior Odisha and Chhattisgarh, an IMD bulletin said.
The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has said it's preparations are on war-footing to deal with any emergency.