Cyclone Arnab made landfall on India's eastern coast near Kalingapatnam in Andhra Pradesh's Srikakulam district overnight, after India's weather agencies spent days warning coastal communities in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha to brace for a direct hit. Al Jazeera reported that roughly 180,000 people were evacuated from low-lying areas in the two states, and that no casualties had been confirmed as of Wednesday morning.

Indian authorities' own figures on the scale of the evacuation have varied by state and by the hour as the storm approached — Odisha's disaster management minister cited around 1,500 people moved from Gajapati district, while other state reports put the figure above 8,000 for Odisha alone, according to Outlook India's tracking of the response. The India Meteorological Department had forecast sustained winds as high as 115-125 kph with gusts to 140 kph at peak intensity, though the system had weakened somewhat by the time it crossed the coast.

SCHOOLS SHUT AND BRIDGES SUBMERGED ACROSS PARTS OF ODISHA AND ANDHRA PRADESH

Heavy rain and high winds battered the coastline into Wednesday, flooding roads, submerging bridges in low-lying stretches and forcing the closure of schools and colleges across the affected districts, per regional Indian outlets tracking the storm's approach. Rainfall warnings extended inland into Jharkhand and West Bengal as the system pushed further into the subcontinent.

The storm is the latest in a string of major cyclones to strike the Bay of Bengal coast this season. Disaster response teams in both states remained on alert Wednesday for secondary flooding and storm surge as Arnab weakens further inland, with officials urging residents not to return home until local authorities lift evacuation orders.