Cyclone Dana is expected to hammer the low-lying regions of West Bengal and Odisha, home to around 150 million people, as a “severe cyclonic storm” late on Thursday or Friday morning, India’s weather bureau said. At least 1.1 million people on India’s eastern coast were fleeing to storm shelters inland, just hours before the storm’s arrival.

Kolkata: More than 1.59 lakh people were evacuated from low-lying areas in West Bengal's coastal districts till Thursday afternoon and another two-lakh people were likely to be shifted as severe cyclone Dana with wind gusts of up to 120 km per hour was expected to make landfall between Thursday midnight and Friday morning on the east coast.

A severe cyclonic storm is set to pummel the coasts of India and Bangladesh on Thursday, spurring authorities to cancel train services, warn fishermen to stay home and begin evacuating thousands of people from vulnerable sites.