Cyclone Phailin the size of Katrina: foreign media

New Delhi: Cyclonic storm "Phailin", classified as "very severe" by the weather department, is expected to hit coastal Odisha and Andhra Pradesh at around 5:30 pm on Saturday.

Here is what the foreign media has to say about the cyclone:
The Washington Post: Potentially catastrophic cyclone Phailin, size of Katrina, headed for India

Over the last day, a cyclone over the Bay of Bengal has explosively strengthened as it marches towards the east coast of India, presenting a clear and present danger to the country of over a billion people.

In the last 18 hours, Phailin's peak winds have increased an astonishing 80 mph (or 70 knots), a rare rate of intensification.

"Based on satellite estimates, maximum sustained winds are now easily around 160 mph (140 knots)," says Ryan Maue, a meteorologist at WeatherBell.com, a private forecasting services company.

Those wind speeds would make Phailin the equivalent of a category 5 hurricane, capable of catastrophic damage.

Phailin is not only intense, but also large.

"It's equivalent to Katrina in size," Maue says. (Read More Here)


The Wall Street Journal: India Braces for Cyclone Phailin
India started assembling disaster-management teams and evacuating people in the low-lying areas of two states on the eastern coast where a cyclone packing winds of 175-185 kilometers an hour is expected to make landfall this weekend.

A severe cyclone in 1999 had killed more than 15,000 people in Orissa state, which along with adjoining Andhra Pradesh will likely face the brunt of Cyclone Phailin as it is set to make the landfall Saturday.

In India, cyclones usually strike between April and June before the onset of monsoon, or from October to December, just after the rainy season ends. On an average, five cyclonic storms develop over north Indian Ocean a year. Although the frequency of cyclones in the region isn't unusual considering that as many as 80 develop over the globe a year, the death toll is often high because of population density, poverty and the lack of sufficient advance weather data. (Read More Here)

BBC: India's Orissa and Andhra Pradesh prepare for storm

India is preparing for a massive cyclone, which is sweeping through the Bay of Bengal towards the country's east coast.

Cyclone Phailin, categorised as "very severe" by weather forecasters, is expected to hit Orissa and Andhra Pradesh states on Saturday.

India's eastern coast and Bangladesh are routinely hit by cyclonic storms between April and November which cause deaths and widespread damage to property. In December 2001, cyclone Thane hit the southern state of Tamil Nadu, killing dozens of people.